{"id":{"repo_id":"abertay","oai_identifier":"oai:rke.abertay.ac.uk:studenttheses/0245f6d1-368d-41b1-b112-b5a1ffe6ce0b"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/abertay/oai:rke.abertay.ac.uk:studenttheses/0245f6d1-368d-41b1-b112-b5a1ffe6ce0b","repository":{"repo_id":"abertay","name":"Abertay University","base_url":"https://rke.abertay.ac.uk/ws/oai"},"display":{"title":"A new computer-based speech therapy tutor for vowel production","abstract":"Our primary mode of communication is via speech. Therefore, any person who has difficulty in producing understandable speech, for whatever reason, is at a great disadvantage. It is the role of the speech therapist to help such people to improve their speech production wherever possible. The aim of this work was to develop a computer-based speech therapy tutor for vowel production. The Tutor would be able to analyse monosyllabic utterances in real-time, extract the vowel portion and match this to a pre-determined template, and display the result with no appreciable delay.
A fully-working prototype has been developed which employs general principles of aircraft tracking in a novel way, to track the coefficients of the quadratic factors of the all-pole linear-prediction model for speech production. It is shown how tracking these parameters can be used to extract extended vowels from a monosyllabic utterance. It is also shown how the algorithm which is used to determine the optimum frame-to-frame tracks can be used to perform template matching. The real plane on which the parameters are tracked, the rs-plane, suffers from non-linear scaling of frequency measures. This leads to poor spectral resolution of the perceptually-important low frequency parameters. To overcome this problem, the rs-plane can be warped in order that distance measures taken between points on the plane are more meaningful perceptually.
The Tutor is based on a personal computer (PC). In order that real-time operation can be achieved, the processing power of the PC is enhanced by the addition of a digital signal processor (TMS32020) board and a transputer (T800) board.
The prototype Tutor was developed with help and advice from Dundee Speech Therapy Service, Tayside Health Board, who also conducted a short pilot study of the Tutor.","abstract_html":"Our primary mode of communication is via speech. Therefore, any person who has difficulty in producing understandable speech, for whatever reason, is at a great disadvantage. It is the role of the speech therapist to help such people to improve their speech production wherever possible. The aim of this work was to develop a computer-based speech therapy tutor for vowel production. The Tutor would be able to analyse monosyllabic utterances in real-time, extract the vowel portion and match this to a pre-determined template, and display the result with no appreciable delay.<br/><br/>A fully-working prototype has been developed which employs general principles of aircraft tracking in a novel way, to track the coefficients of the quadratic factors of the all-pole linear-prediction model for speech production. It is shown how tracking these parameters can be used to extract extended vowels from a monosyllabic utterance. It is also shown how the algorithm which is used to determine the optimum frame-to-frame tracks can be used to perform template matching. The real plane on which the parameters are tracked, the rs-plane, suffers from non-linear scaling of frequency measures. This leads to poor spectral resolution of the perceptually-important low frequency parameters. To overcome this problem, the rs-plane can be warped in order that distance measures taken between points on the plane are more meaningful perceptually.<br/><br/>The Tutor is based on a personal computer (PC). In order that real-time operation can be achieved, the processing power of the PC is enhanced by the addition of a digital signal processor (TMS32020) board and a transputer (T800) board.<br/><br/>The prototype Tutor was developed with help and advice from Dundee Speech Therapy Service, Tayside Health Board, who also conducted a short pilot study of the Tutor.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Turnbull, James"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"PhD","degree_level":"Doctoral Thesis","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":1991,"date_issued":"1991-9","date_published":"1991-9","updated_at":"2026-07-24T00:50:16Z","subjects":[],"languages":["eng"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["oai:rke.abertay.ac.uk:studenttheses/0245f6d1-368d-41b1-b112-b5a1ffe6ce0b"],"render_values":[{"text":"oai:rke.abertay.ac.uk:studenttheses/0245f6d1-368d-41b1-b112-b5a1ffe6ce0b","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://rke.abertay.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/0245f6d1-368d-41b1-b112-b5a1ffe6ce0b","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Turnbull, James"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["1991-9"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["1991-9"]},{"key":"dc:publisher.department","label":"Dc Publisher Department","values":["Dundee Institute of Technology"]},{"key":"dc:relation.isreferencedby","label":"Dc Relation Isreferencedby","values":["https://rke.abertay.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/0245f6d1-368d-41b1-b112-b5a1ffe6ce0b"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationlevel","label":"Dc Type Qualificationlevel","values":["Doctoral Thesis"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationname","label":"Dc Type Qualificationname","values":["PhD"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["oai:rke.abertay.ac.uk:studenttheses/0245f6d1-368d-41b1-b112-b5a1ffe6ce0b","https://rke.abertay.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/0245f6d1-368d-41b1-b112-b5a1ffe6ce0b"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://rke.abertay.ac.uk/files/15635902/Turnbull_1991_A_new_computer_based_speech_PhD.pdf"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Our primary mode of communication is via speech. Therefore, any person who has difficulty in producing understandable speech, for whatever reason, is at a great disadvantage. It is the role of the speech therapist to help such people to improve their speech production wherever possible. The aim of this work was to develop a computer-based speech therapy tutor for vowel production. The Tutor would be able to analyse monosyllabic utterances in real-time, extract the vowel portion and match this to a pre-determined template, and display the result with no appreciable delay.
A fully-working prototype has been developed which employs general principles of aircraft tracking in a novel way, to track the coefficients of the quadratic factors of the all-pole linear-prediction model for speech production. It is shown how tracking these parameters can be used to extract extended vowels from a monosyllabic utterance. It is also shown how the algorithm which is used to determine the optimum frame-to-frame tracks can be used to perform template matching. The real plane on which the parameters are tracked, the rs-plane, suffers from non-linear scaling of frequency measures. This leads to poor spectral resolution of the perceptually-important low frequency parameters. To overcome this problem, the rs-plane can be warped in order that distance measures taken between points on the plane are more meaningful perceptually.
The Tutor is based on a personal computer (PC). In order that real-time operation can be achieved, the processing power of the PC is enhanced by the addition of a digital signal processor (TMS32020) board and a transputer (T800) board.
The prototype Tutor was developed with help and advice from Dundee Speech Therapy Service, Tayside Health Board, who also conducted a short pilot study of the Tutor."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["A new computer-based speech therapy tutor for vowel production"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Turnbull, James"],"dc:date":["1991-9"],"dc:date.issued":["1991-9"],"dc:description.abstract":["Our primary mode of communication is via speech. Therefore, any person who has difficulty in producing understandable speech, for whatever reason, is at a great disadvantage. It is the role of the speech therapist to help such people to improve their speech production wherever possible. The aim of this work was to develop a computer-based speech therapy tutor for vowel production. The Tutor would be able to analyse monosyllabic utterances in real-time, extract the vowel portion and match this to a pre-determined template, and display the result with no appreciable delay.
A fully-working prototype has been developed which employs general principles of aircraft tracking in a novel way, to track the coefficients of the quadratic factors of the all-pole linear-prediction model for speech production. It is shown how tracking these parameters can be used to extract extended vowels from a monosyllabic utterance. It is also shown how the algorithm which is used to determine the optimum frame-to-frame tracks can be used to perform template matching. The real plane on which the parameters are tracked, the rs-plane, suffers from non-linear scaling of frequency measures. This leads to poor spectral resolution of the perceptually-important low frequency parameters. To overcome this problem, the rs-plane can be warped in order that distance measures taken between points on the plane are more meaningful perceptually.
The Tutor is based on a personal computer (PC). In order that real-time operation can be achieved, the processing power of the PC is enhanced by the addition of a digital signal processor (TMS32020) board and a transputer (T800) board.
The prototype Tutor was developed with help and advice from Dundee Speech Therapy Service, Tayside Health Board, who also conducted a short pilot study of the Tutor."],"dc:identifier":["oai:rke.abertay.ac.uk:studenttheses/0245f6d1-368d-41b1-b112-b5a1ffe6ce0b","https://rke.abertay.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/0245f6d1-368d-41b1-b112-b5a1ffe6ce0b"],"dc:identifier.uri":["https://rke.abertay.ac.uk/files/15635902/Turnbull_1991_A_new_computer_based_speech_PhD.pdf"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:publisher.department":["Dundee Institute of Technology"],"dc:relation.isreferencedby":["https://rke.abertay.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/0245f6d1-368d-41b1-b112-b5a1ffe6ce0b"],"dc:title":["A new computer-based speech therapy tutor for vowel production"],"dc:type":["Thesis"],"dc:type.qualificationlevel":["Doctoral Thesis"],"dc:type.qualificationname":["PhD"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T00:50:16Z"}