AUTOMATED SPEECH DISORDER DETECTION METHOD AND APPARATUS

摘要

Speech disorder detection method that can be implemented as an automated dialog with a person suspect to suffer from a change in speech, e.g. Aphasia, Dysarthria or Apraxia. Preferably, a stroke analysis is performed based on the change in speech. The method comprises performing a language analysis on a pre-defined spoken language received from a person under test . Preferably the language analysis comprises statistical analysis of phoneme lengths and speaking rate. These language analysis results are compared with results of previous language analysis results obtained either for the person under test, such as obtained when then the person was in a healthy or in another known health state. The previous analysis results may also include non- individual data such as obtained for a group of persons. If personal historical data are used, a development in a change of speech e.g. during rehabilitation can be tracked. The changed in speech is then based on the comparison of present analysis results with the previous results. Stored data may be adapted to new data, if no stroke was detected. The method is suited for implementation using low cost equipment and is thus suited for home-use, e.g. of persons during rehabilitation. A preferred apparatus can be implemented on: a stand-alone PC such as a Laptop computer, a set-top box connected to a TV set, a dedicated stand-alone device or a PC controlled from a server via the Internet- connection. Preferably, such apparatus can perform a dialog using a microphone, a loudspeaker and a display and adapt the test sequence to the response from the person.