An automatic classification tool for speech sound errors was developed. Students speak short words, representing vowel sounds in the English language, into a microphone. The tool, in form of a computer program, detects and classifies possible vowel substitutions automatically in real-time. The methodologies for sound acquisition, signal pre-processing and classification are outlined. A satisfactory correct recognition rate of 80% to 90% was obtained, with a typical classification time of 1 second. Participating in the project were Dr. Bernd J. Kurz (professor), David Gregg (formerly MCS student) and Cynthia Howroyd (The Speech Institute). This research was carried out in collaboration with The Speech Institute Ltd., Fredericton, N.B. The classification tool is to be licensed to The Speech Institute. Project Status: Started: March 1995 Completed: January 1996
Kurz, Gregg, Howroyd: Real-Time Automatic Classification of Speech Sound Errors, Proc. Int'l. Conference Natural Language Process. and Industrial. Applic., NLP+IA’96, GRETAL, Univ. of Moncton, Moncton, NB, Canada, 4-6 June 1996, Vol.1, pp.141-147. David Gregg, The Automatic Classification of Short Speech Sound Deficiencies, MCS thesis, Fac. of Computer Science, Univ. of New Brunswick, January 1996. (Thesis is classified and on embargo until February 1998).
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Last revised: 6 June 1997 by Bernd Kurz bjkurz@unb.ca