Methods and devices for enhancing fluency in persons who stutter employing visual speech gestures
First Claim
1. A method for enhancing the fluency of persons who stutter, comprising steps of:
- displaying visual speech gestures associated with the articulatory movements of a person'"'"'s mouth on a display while a patient having a stuttering or speech impediment is speaking so that the patient is able to visually perceive the articulatory movements of the person'"'"'s mouth provided on the display such that the patient is able to refer to the display at desired times to thereby enhance the fluency of the speech of the patient.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Methods, devices, and computer program products display visual choral speech to a patient who stutters or has a speech impediment or impairment as a visual stimulus for the patient to enhance the fluency of the patient. The visual choral speech is incongruous with the speech produced by the stutterer and is provided by a visual display of the articulatory movements of a person other than the patient (or a simulated representation thereof) of the person'"'"'s lips and mouth as the person speaks. The visual speech gestures can be displayed to the patient in advance of a speaking event or speech production by the stutterer and/or concurrently with a speaking event (either intermittently or continuous during the speaking event). The visual choral speech gestures can be based on a string of coherent words to provide the visual speech gestures signal such that it is relayed to the user without the attendant auditory component allowing the user to speak at a substantially normal pace with enhanced fluency.
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Citations
70 Claims
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1. A method for enhancing the fluency of persons who stutter, comprising steps of:
displaying visual speech gestures associated with the articulatory movements of a person'"'"'s mouth on a display while a patient having a stuttering or speech impediment is speaking so that the patient is able to visually perceive the articulatory movements of the person'"'"'s mouth provided on the display such that the patient is able to refer to the display at desired times to thereby enhance the fluency of the speech of the patient. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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33. A device to enhance the fluency of persons who stutter, comprising:
a display device configured to display at least one visual speech gesture stimulus associated with the articulatory movements of a person reciting coherent language which is incongruous with the speech production of a user. - View Dependent Claims (34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51)
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52. A computer program product for enhancing the fluency of persons who stutter, the computer program product comprising:
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a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied in said medium, said computer-readable program code comprising; computer readable program code for displaying at least one visual speech gesture stimulus associated with the articulatory movements of a person'"'"'s mouth on a display while a patient having a stuttering or speech impediment is speaking so that the patient is able to visually perceive the articulatory movements of the person'"'"'s mouth provided on the display such that the patient is able to refer to the display at desired times, wherein the at least one visual speech gesture stimulus is provided by a person other than the patient. - View Dependent Claims (53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65)
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- 66. A portable device for enhancing fluency in stutterers, the device configured to display visual speech gestures of at least one person making articulatory movements by mouthing words associated with coherent speech, and wherein, in operation, the device is configured to provide the visual speech gestures with associated word utterances being generally inaudible to a user so that the user is able to visually perceive the articulatory movements of the person'"'"'s mouth without attendant word sounds to thereby enhance the fluency of the speech of the patient.
Specification