Children's speech training aid
First Claim
1. A child'"'"'s speech training aid comprising;
- an acoustic model store for storing acoustic models of context sensitive phonemes representing the processed results of speech by numerous children;
a dictionary for storing a list of words together with information to construct acoustic models of these words from the acoustic model store;
a network generator for generating an acoustic model of a required word together with an acoustic model of general speech sounds;
input means for requesting the generation of an acoustic model of the required word;
means for receiving a child'"'"'s utterances;
means for processing the child'"'"'s utterances into a form suitable for comparison with acoustic models of speech;
a speech pattern marcher for comparing the processed child'"'"'s utterances with the acoustic models of the required word and general speech; and
means for indicating whether or not the child'"'"'s utterances are the required word together with an indication of the accuracy of pronunciation of that required word.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A children'"'"'s speech training aid compares a child'"'"'s speech with models of speech, stored as sub-word acoustic models, and a general speech model to give an indication of whether or not the child has spoken correctly. An indication of how well the word has been pronounced may also be given. An adult operator enters the word to be tested into the training aid which then forms a model of that word from the stored sub-word speech models. The stored acoustic models are formed by first recording a plurality of words by a plurality of children from a given list of single words. These recordings are then processed off-line to give a basic acoustic model of an acceptable or correct sound for each phoneme in the context of the pre- and proceeding phonemes. The acoustic models are Hidden Markov Models. The limits of acceptable pronunciation applied to different words and children may be adjusted by variable penalty values applied in association with the general speech acoustic model. The training aid generates accumulated word costs for each child'"'"'s utterance and uses these costs to indicate correctness of pronunciation.
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Citations
17 Claims
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1. A child'"'"'s speech training aid comprising;
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an acoustic model store for storing acoustic models of context sensitive phonemes representing the processed results of speech by numerous children; a dictionary for storing a list of words together with information to construct acoustic models of these words from the acoustic model store; a network generator for generating an acoustic model of a required word together with an acoustic model of general speech sounds; input means for requesting the generation of an acoustic model of the required word; means for receiving a child'"'"'s utterances; means for processing the child'"'"'s utterances into a form suitable for comparison with acoustic models of speech; a speech pattern marcher for comparing the processed child'"'"'s utterances with the acoustic models of the required word and general speech; and means for indicating whether or not the child'"'"'s utterances are the required word together with an indication of the accuracy of pronunciation of that required word. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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Specification