Visualization of internal articulator dynamics for use in speech therapy for children with Sigmatismus Interdentalis

This paper presents an ongoing study in which the applicability of a talking head with its three-dimensional animation of internal articulator dynamics is investigated as a method of speech visualization for use in speech therapy for children with sigmatismus interdentalis. Previous work of the authors showed that people with normal hearing, vision and speaking abilities were able to benefit from visual information provided by the internal articulatory movements of the talking head during speech production after a short learning lesson. In the present study a perception and a production test for children with sigmatismus interdentalis were designed. In a learning lesson the correct production of the alveolar sibilants /s/ and /z/ was auditorily presented and visualized by use of the talking head; the correct tongue position was explained and set in contrast to an interdental production of the sounds. Afterwards a visual identification test was performed and the perception and production tests were repeated. In order to determine the effect of the learning lesson, the production data of three of the children were evaluated by 15 raters. The results of the perception test showed that children were able to auditorily differentiate between correct and wrong production of the alveolar fricatives /s/ and /z/. Furthermore, most of the children are able to visually identify correct and wrong productions of the talking head. The evaluations showed that the learning lesson was capable to improve the sibilant production of two of the three children.