CLP is a congenital disorder, which results in an inability to produce intelligible speech. Further it can result in feeding problems and social isolation in affected children. In most of the cases, facial deformity in an affected child is corrected by surgery. However it is still required to train the children for being able to produce intelligible speech. Speech therapists play a crucial role here by conducting therapy sessions for such children.
Speech therapists often conduct a series of assessments at different times to access level of hypernasality in the speech. Lesser the hypernasality, better is the intelligibility of the speech. In our field studies, we have observed that the current assessment tools based on Nasometry are fairly rudimentary in their design. These are bulkier, need careful calibration and are restrictive for children with two different microphones to be attached to their faces during assessment. Moreover it can not be used by novice users and at different locations.
NasoSpeech, a tangible and an interactive tool, is our response to the current state of art in the assessment of hypernasality of CLP patients. We aim to make it simple-to-use and user-friendly for both CLP patients and speech pathologists. It will be non-restrictive, mobile, fast and accurate with inbuilt state-of-the-art Speech processing methods. NasoSpeech will have the ability to support mediated scenarios of distant assessment, counselling and self-learning for CLP patients, and would enhance collaboration between CLP patients and speech pathologists.
