An acoustic-perceptual method for the quantitative evaluation of hypernasality.
A computer implementation is proposed as a method for assessing the quality of an individual's speech from a perceptual and communicative point of view. The input to this procedure is a standardized set of speech samples (vowels and selected consonants) designed to permit an evaluation of the speaker's phonology. The output is a numerical specification of the functional adequacy of the target values of the phonetic segments under analysis. The computer program consists of three parts: a simulated auditory analyzer, the output of which is a spectral representation of each test item; an algorithm that computes a psychoacoustically based measure of distinctiveness or perceptual distance for each pair of test spectra, and a routine for comparing, in terms of this measure, the test items with the corresponding reference items drawn from a population of normal speakers or a recording made before patient intervention.
D000162:Acoustics; D002972:Cleft Palate / Q000150:complications; D003201:Computers; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D010700:Phonetics; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D013057:Spectrum Analysis; D013060:Speech; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis