Speech Perception Assessment and Training System

描述(由申请人提供)：目标是一个软件言语感知评估和训练系统(SPATS)，用于成人助听器和人工耳蜗使用者的听力康复。该系统将评估用户识别英语音节成分的能力，即在安静和背景噪音中识别音节开头、核心和尾声的能力，并将提供个性化的识别培训，以提高这些能力。该系统的一个管理部分将保存和报告记录，并简化临床医生和客户对该系统的导航。该项目的三个部分是：1)开发系统的评估组件，2)开发系统的培训组件，以及3)其临床验证。 评估将提供客户识别英语音节组成的能力的清单。包括说话者、语音背景和噪音水平的变化，确保了评估是对听者自下而上或分析的言语感知能力的有效和客观的评估。训练算法自适应地选择项目和噪声级别，以便将练习集中在中等难度的项目上，按其对语音理解的重要性进行加权。项目重要性是根据出现频率数据来估计的。此外，通过提供许多练习试验、即时反馈，以及在错误之后快速比较预期声音与其混音器，以及通过包括相对容易、低不确定性和更困难、高不确定性的条件来增强学习。为了更好地激发用户的积极性，并鼓励用户转换到真实世界的语音，较短的单词和短语培训将定期与音节成分培训穿插在一起。验证性研究将衡量评估系统在识别单词和句子方面的成功预测以及在言语交流中的总体成功程度。还将测量与主观评估工具有关的助听器和人工耳蜗植入物的益处、满意度和使用的相关性。该系统的评估组件将适用于患者评估和助听器及其配件的性能评估，以及人工耳蜗植入物、MAP、程序和处理方案的性能评估。将衡量培训系统对改进验证措施的有效性，从而衡量客户理解语音的整体能力。该系统的训练部件可用于临床环境和家庭中的听力康复计划。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal is a software Speech Perception Assessment and Training System (SPATS) for the aural rehabilitation of adult hearing aid and cochlear-implant users. The system will assess the user's ability to identify the constituents of English syllables; that is, syllable onsets, nuclei, and codas in quiet and in background noise, and it will provide individualized recognition training to improve these abilities. An administrative component of the system will keep and report records and simplify navigation of the system by clinicians and clients. Three parts of the project are: 1) the development of the assessment components of the system, 2) the development of the training components of the system, and 3) their clinical validation. Assessments will provide an inventory of a client's abilities to identify the constituents of English syllables. Including variation in talkers, phonetic contexts, and noise levels assures that the assessments are valid and objective evaluations of a listener's bottom-up, or analytic, speech-perception abilities. The training algorithm adaptively selects items and noise levels so that practice is concentrated on items of moderate difficulty weighted by their importance for speech understanding. Item importance is estimated from frequency of occurrence data. Further, learning is enhanced by providing many practice trials, immediate feedback, and, following errors, rapid comparisons of intended sounds with their confusors and by including both relatively easy, low-uncertainty and more difficult, high-uncertainty conditions. To better motivate the user and to encourage transfer to real-world speech, briefer periods of training on words and phrases will be regularly interspersed with the training on syllable constituents. Validation studies will measure how well the assessment system predicts success in identifying words and sentences, and general success in speech communication. Correlations with subjective estimates of benefit from, satisfaction with, and use of hearing aids and cochlear implants in relation to the proposed assessment tools will also be measured. Assessment components of the system will be suitable for patient evaluation and for the evaluation of the performance of hearing-aids and their fittings as well as for the evaluation of the performance of cochlear implants, maps, programs, and processing schemes. The effectiveness of the training system for improving the validation measures and, thus, the clients' overall ability to understand speech, will be measured. The training components of the system can be used in aural rehabilitation programs in clinical settings and in the home.