A Tool for Training Speech Imitation Accuracy

Dysarthria is a neurological motor speech disorder that commonly results in reduced intelligibility. Communication partners can learn to better understand the speech of someone with dysarthria through perceptual training. Vocal imitation of the degraded speech during perceptual training has been shown to elevate this learning. A tool that provides the learner with real-time feedback regarding the accuracy of their imitation attempts during training may further enhance this learning. We describe a training tool that compares dysarthric speech productions with the imitation attempts of healthy subjects, using a two-level dynamic warp that accounts for both spectral and temporal degradation. Feature vectors derived from both the spectrogram and LPC are examined.