Development of speech trainer for the patients wearing maxillary prosthesis

为了使佩戴上颌义齿的患者尽快恢复到正常水平，通过试验研究了一种新的言语训练方法。这个新系统使人们能够使用基于线性预测方程的部分自相关（PARCOR）方法来区分某些元音和爆破音。PARCOR系数表示的声学参数可以识别出从前面辅音到后面元音的过渡部分。该程序包括以下步骤：(1)首先通过单音节模式匹配来区分每个元音，将计数减少到1/5的大小；(2)选择与口语单音节最相似的音素并记录下来。分析的数据包括5位男性说话者的25个元音和305个区分元音的辅音，以及130个识别正面辅音的爆破音。结果表明，对元音和爆破音的平均识别率分别为95.4%和78.5%。因此，这个新系统可以作为一个重要的语音分析工具来帮助培训和发展语言治疗。

In order to rehabilitate those patients wearing maxillary prosthesis back to normal standards as soon as possible, a new method of speech training was developed by way of trial. This new system enables one to distinguish certain vowels and plosives using the partial auto-correlation (PARCOR) method, that is based on a linear prediction equation. Acoustic parameters indicated by the PARCOR coefficient can recognize the part where transition from the frontal consonant to the following vowel has taken place. This procedure involves the following steps; (1) each vowel sound is first discriminated by monosyllable pattern matching to reduce the count to 1/5 the size, (2) the phoneme having maximum resemblance to the spoken monosyllable is selected and recorded. The analyzed data comprises 25 vowels and 305 consonants for discriminating vowel, and 130 plosive sounds for recognition of frontal consonants from 5 male speakers.Results showed the recognition rates of the vowels and plosives to be 95.4% and 78.5% respectively on the average. Thus, this new system showed that it could be as an important speech analyzer to aid in training and developing speech therapy.