Assessment of the speech of communicatively handicapped individuals is one of the primary activities performed by speech- language pathologists. This project examines the feasibility of a semi-automated, comprehensive system for the quantitative assessment of speech to be implemented with currently available technology. The envisioned system is designed to acquire raw speech input data, as well as a trained clinician's observations, in the course of the testing session. The system follows a testing battery model, examining such factors as: (1) client's background/history; (2) single-word articulation ability; (3) sentence articulation ability; (4) receptive articulation abilities; (5) speech motor functions; and (6) peripheral integrity of the speech mechanism. As a first step toward the envisioned system, this study is comprised of a single-word articulation test followed by misarticulation analyses in order to examine the extent to which existing speech recognition technology can be adapted to provide analyses at the phonetic level that is consistent with the clinician's assessment of the client's articulation skills. If feasibility is validated, Phase II will be devoted to implementing the analysis algorithm and associated data management software functions required to automate the assessment process, and further levels of analysis will be developed including phonological process analysis, phonetic context analyses of error sounds, and acoustic analyses of error sounds.
