SPATS: Speech Perception Assessment and Training System.
A software system, SPATS (patent pending), that tests and trains important bottom-up and combined bottom-up/top-down speech-perception skills is described. Bottom-up skills are the abilities to identify the constituents of syllables: onsets, nuclei, and codas in quiet and noise as produced by eight talkers. Top-down skills are the abilities to use knowledge of linguistic context to identify words in spoken sentences. The sentence module in SPATS emphasizes combined bottom-up/top-down abilities in perceiving sentences in noise. The word-initial onsets, stressed nuclei, and word-final codas are ranked in importance and grouped into subsets based on their importance. Testing utilizes random presentation of all the items included in a subset. Training in Quiet (SNR = 40 dB) or in Noise (SNR = 5 dB), is adaptively focused on individual listener's learnable items of intermediate difficulty. Alternatively, SNR-adaption training uses Kaernbach's algorithm to find the SNR required for a target percent correct. The unique sentence module trains the combination of bottom-up (hearing) with top-down (use of linguistic context) abilities to identify words in meaningful sentences in noise. Scoring in the sentence module is objective and automatic.
Communication Disorders Technology, Inc., Indiana University Research Park, 501 N. Morton St. Sta 215, Bloomington, IN 47404, Email: < jamdmill@indiana.edu >
James D
JD
Miller
Charles S
CS
Watson
Diane
D
Kewley-Port
Roy
R
Sillings
William B
WB
Mills
Deborah F
DF
Burleson