The quantization distortion of vector quantization (VQ) is a key element that affects the performance of a discrete hidden Markov modeling (DHMM) system. Many researchers have realized this problem and tried to use integrated feature or multiple codebook in their systems to offset the disadvantage of the conventional VQ. However the computational complexity of those systems is then increased. I...

It is known that degrading acoustic noise innuences speech quality across phoneme classes in a non-uniform manner. This results in variable quality performance for many speech enhancement algorithms in noisy environments. To address this, a hidden-Markov-model phoneme classiica-tion procedure is proposed which directs single channel speech enhancement across individual phoneme classes. The proc...

Decision tree based state tying uses so-called phonetic questions to assign triphone states to reasonable acoustic models. These phonetic questions are in fact phonetic categories such as vowels, plosives or fricatives. The assumption behind this is that context phonemes which belong to the same phonetic class have a similar influence on the pronunciation of a phoneme. For a new phoneme set, wh...

In this paper, we describe a new approach for speaker independent automatic phoneme alignment. Typical algorithms for this task use only phoneme-to-frame similarity measures which are somehow maximised or minimised. In addition to such similarity measures, we use phoneme duration hypotheses generated by the speech synthesis system HADIFIX [1]. For algorithms based on dynamic programming, it is ...

It is well documented that people with severe speech and physical impairments (SSPI) often experience literacy difficulties, which hinder them from effectively using orthographicbased AAC systems for communication. To address this problem, phoneme-based AAC systems have been proposed, which enable users to access a set of spoken phonemes and combine phonemes into speech output. In this paper we...

BACKGROUND Awareness of individual phonemes in words is a late-acquired level of phonological awareness that usually develops in the early school years. It is generally agreed to have a close relationship with early literacy development, but its role in speech change is less well understood. Speech and language therapy for children with speech disorder involves tasks that appear, either implici...