Clear Speech

Approximately 10% of North Americans have some communication disorder. These can be physical as in cerebral palsy and Parkinson's disease, cognitive as in Alzheimer's disease and dementia generally, or both physical and cognitive as in stroke. In fact, deteriorations in language are often the early hallmarks of broader diseases associated with older age, which is especially relevant since aging populations across many nations will result in a drastic increase in the prevalence of these types of disorders. A significant change to how healthcare is administered, brought on by these aging populations, will increase the workload of speech-language pathologists, therapists, and caregivers who are often already overloaded. Fortunately, modern speech technology, such as automatic speech recognition, has matured to the point where it can now have a profound positive impact on the lives of millions of people living with various types of disorders. This book serves as a common ground for two communities: clinical linguists (e.g., speech-language pathologists) and technologists (e.g., computer scientists). This book examines the neurological and physical causes of several speech disorders and their clinical effects, and demonstrates how modern technology can be used in practice to manage those effects and improve one's quality of life. This book is intended for a broad audience, from undergraduates to more senior researchers, as well as to users of these technologies and their therapists.

Frank Rudzicz is an international expert on speech technology for individuals with speech disorders. He is the president of the international joint ACL/ISCA special interest group on Speech and Language Processing for Assistive Technology and Young Investigator of the Alzheimers Society. His work involves machine-learning, human-computer interaction, speech-language pathology, rehabilitation engineering, signal processing, and linguistics. Contributions include the TORGO database of disordered speech (the first speech recognition system for people with speech disorders based on their physical speech articulation) and subsequent communication aid software that modifies the acoustics of hard-to-understand speech to make it more understandable to the typical listener. He is the director of SPOClab at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and University of Toronto, and a co-founder of WinterLight Labs Inc.