SYNTHESIZING DYSARTHRIC SPEECH USING MULTI-SPEAKER TTS FOR DSYARTHRIC SPEECH RECOGNITION

Dysarthria is a motor speech disorder often characterized by reduced speech intelligibility through slow, uncoordinated control of speech production muscles. Automatic Speech recognition (ASR) systems may help dysarthric talkers communicate more effectively. However, robust dysarthria-specific ASR requires a significant amount of training speech is required, which is not readily available for dysarthric talkers. In this dissertation, we investigate dysarthric speech augmentation and synthesis methods. To better understand differences in prosodic and acoustic characteristics of dysarthric spontaneous speech at varying severity levels, a comparative study between typical and dysarthric speech was conducted. These characteristics are important components for dysarthric speech modeling, synthesis, and augmentation. For augmentation, prosodic transformation and time-feature masking have been proposed. For dysarthric speech synthesis, this dissertation has introduced a modified neural multi-talker TTS by adding a dysarthria severity level coefficient and a pause insertion model to synthesize dysarthric speech for varying severity levels. In addition, we have extended this work by using a label propagation technique to create more meaningful control variables such as a continuous Respiration, Laryngeal and Tongue (RLT) parameter, even for datasets that only provide discrete dysarthria severity level information. This approach increases the controllability of the system, so we are able to generate more dysarthric speech with a broader range. To evaluate their effectiveness for synthesis of training data, dysarthria-specific speech recognition was used. Results show that a DNN-HMM model trained on additional synthetic dysarthric speech achieves WER improvement of 12.2% compared to the baseline, and that the addition of the severity level and pause insertion controls decrease WER by 6.5%, showing the effectiveness of adding these parameters. Overall results on the TORGO database demonstrate that using dysarthric synthetic speech to increase the amount of dysarthric-patterned speech for training has a significant impact on the dysarthric ASR systems

Spectral estimation for random processes with stationary increments

In studying a stationary random process on R, the covariance function is commonlyused to characterize the second-order spatial dependency. Through the inversionof Fourier transformation, its corresponding spectral density has been widely usedto describe the periodical components and frequencies. When the process is with stationarydth increments, that is, when the resulting process after undertaken dth orderof di erences is stationary, the notion of structure function is put forward. Throughthe inversion formula, the spectrum can be represented by the structure function.In this dissertation, we rst investigate the properties of the proposed Method ofMoments structure function estimator, through which we obtain the spectral densityfunction estimation of the underlying process. In particular, when the process is intrinsicallystationary, which is also a process is with stationary increments of order 1,we derive the spectral density functions for commonly used variogram models. Furthermore,our proposed estimation method is applied to estimate the spectral densityof power variogram models. All of the above results are supplemented via simulationsand a real data analysis. Our results show that the proposed estimation method performswell in recovering the true spectral density function on various processes withstationary increments we considered.[This abstract has been edited to remove characters that will not display in this system. Please see the PDF for the full abstract.]]]> 2018 Spectral theory (Mathematics) Estimation theory Stochastic processes Stationary processes English http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/Chen_uncg_0154D_12424.pdf oai:libres.uncg.edu/23131 2019-03-04T14:06:04Z UNCG The effects of instrumental music instruction on the neurophysiological responses and adaptive behaviors of children with autism spectrum disorder Chinn Cannon, Michelle L. NC DOCKS at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro <![CDATA[Autism spectrum disorder, also referred to as autism, is a complex and heterogeneous neurodevelopmental condition characterized by deficits in social communication, delayed or absent language development, and restricted or repetitive behaviors. Finding an appropriate, effective, and affordable intervention that targets these differences may increase access of children with autism to treatment that improves their quality of life, independence, and productivity, while reducing lifetime care costs. The premise of this exploratory study was that music instruction may serve as an appropriate, effective, and affordable intervention for children with autism. Previous researchers noted that children with autism have both an affinity for and ability in music, while neuroscientists demonstrated increased cortical growth and neural network responses among musicians. At the onset of the current study, no published research studies were found that explicitly examined effects of musical training on both neural activity and adaptive behaviors of children with autism. The purpose of this exploratory research study was to investigate the effects of instrumental music instruction on neurophysiological responses and adaptive behaviors of children with autism. Fourteen children with autism participated in the current study. During a 20-week period, a control group (n = 7) received 30 minutes of non-music intervention per week, and an experimental group (n = 7) received 30 minutes of music intervention (i.e., violin instruction) per week. Before and after the intervention period, neurophysiological and adaptive behavioral data were collected from control and experimental groups. The 14 participants of the study were assigned randomly to either the control (i.e., non-music intervention group), or the experimental (i.e., music intervention group). Eleven children completed the behavioral segment of this study, five in the control group and six in the experimental group. As compared to the non-music intervention group, experimental participants displayed significant gains in Expressive Communication (p =.018). Increases in Interpersonal Socialization by the music intervention group also approached significance (p = .057). The researcher found a moderately large effect size for Expressive Communication (r = .694), and for Interpersonal Socialization (r = .589), accounting for approximately 40% and 35% of the variances of the two adaptive behaviors before and after music intervention, respectively. Eight children completed the neurophysiological segment of this study, three in the control group and five in the experimental group. Results revealed several trends in the differences between the control and experimental intervention groups' postintervention neurophysiological responses. While changes were not observed among the non-music group's pre- and post-intervention cortical activity, changes were observed among the experimental group's cortical activation in areas associated with social and language learning. These findings supported the premise that instrumental music study may serve as an appropriate, effective, and affordable intervention, targeting the hallmark behaviors of autism and potentially associated cortical areas

The importance of "scaffolding" in clinical approach to deafness across the lifespan

Throughout the present work of thesis, the concept of scaffolding will be used as a fil rouge through the chapters. What I mean for “scaffolding approach”, therefore, is an integrated and multidisciplinary clinical and research methodology to hearing impairments that could take into account persons as a whole; an approach that needs to be continuously adapted and harmonized with the individuals, pursuant to their progress, their limits and resources, in consideration of their audiological, cognitive, emotional, personal, and social characteristics. The following studies of our research group will be presented: A study (2020) designed to assess the effects of parent training (PT) on enhancing children’s communication development (chapter two); Two studies of our research group (2016; 2020) concerning variables influencing comprehension of emotions and nuclear executive functions in deaf children with cochlear implant (chapter three and chapter four) In chapter five a presentation and description of our Mind-Active Communication program, main topics and aims, multidisciplinary organizations of group and individual sessions with a description of used materials and methodology is given. Finally, a preliminary evaluation to explore the use of this multidisciplinary rehabilitative program on quality of life, psychological wellbeing, and hearing abilities in a sample of cochlear implanted elderly persons is reported

Study to determine potential flight applications and human factors design guidelines for voice recognition and synthesis systems

A study was conducted to determine potential commercial aircraft flight deck applications and implementation guidelines for voice recognition and synthesis. At first, a survey of voice recognition and synthesis technology was undertaken to develop a working knowledge base. Then, numerous potential aircraft and simulator flight deck voice applications were identified and each proposed application was rated on a number of criteria in order to achieve an overall payoff rating. The potential voice recognition applications fell into five general categories: programming, interrogation, data entry, switch and mode selection, and continuous/time-critical action control. The ratings of the first three categories showed the most promise of being beneficial to flight deck operations. Possible applications of voice synthesis systems were categorized as automatic or pilot selectable and many were rated as being potentially beneficial. In addition, voice system implementation guidelines and pertinent performance criteria are proposed. Finally, the findings of this study are compared with those made in a recent NASA study of a 1995 transport concept

The intelligibility of speech produced by young children with cochlear implants

Objective: The purpose of the current study was to examine the intelligibility of speech produced by young children with cochlear implants. Specifically the questions posed was, does intelligibility vary across different sampling methods, by post-implantation age, and by listener familiarity? Participants: Six preschool children participated in the study. These children were selected because they met the following criteria: 1) had pre-lingual deafness; 2) had severe to profound binaural hearing loss; 3) fitted with either a Clarion or Nucleus-24 multi-channel cochlear implant; 4) used verbal communication rather than signing during treatment; 5) had a receptive vocabulary within 2 standard deviations of the mean according to their age; 6) were implanted before age 4 years; and 7) had postimplantation age of at least 18 months. Method: Data was gathered through a conversational speech sample, the Children\u27s Speech Intelligibility Measure (CSIM), and rating scales. To assess percent intelligible in conversational speech, a thirty-minute language sample was collected and audio taperecorded. Two experienced listeners, who were unfamiliar with the speakers, listened to each tape individually and orthographically transcribed the samples. The listeners then developed one final transcription per child through a consensus method. Percent intelligible in conversation was then determined using a procedure described by Shriberg (1986). The CSIM was used to obtain percent intelligible in single words. Each child imitated 50 words. Their utterances were audio taped and played back to a panel of 3 inexperienced listeners. There were 18 listeners (3 per sample) total. The listeners were asked to identify the word they thought the child said. In addition, rating scales were filled out by both parents and the primary clinician of each child. These individuals reported how much they understood and how much they believed others understood of the child\u27s speech. Data Analysis: Spearman Rank-Order Correlation Coefficients were used to determine relationships among the variables. Results: The only factor to reach statistical significance was post-implantation age. The failure to find other statistically significant correlations may have been due to the small sample size used in the current study