International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 3, No.

4, 2011

Statistical Analysis of the Speech to Estimate the Severity of Speech Disability

Anandthirtha. B. Gudi 1 H.K. Shreedhar 2 and H. C. Nagaraj3
1

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, SBM Jain College of Engineering, Bangalore, Karnataka, India gudi_anand@rediffmail.com

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, SBM Jain College of Engineering, Bangalore, Karnataka, India shreedharhks@gmail.com
3

Principal, Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, Bangalore, Karnataka, India principal@nmit.ac.in

Abstract
In this work, speech disability of pathological subjects is estimated through the use of statistical techniques. To analyze the speech disability, words which are related to both manner of articulation and place of articulation are chosen. Mean, standard deviation, variance, median, mode and norm analysis is conducted on the speech signal samples of pathological subjects. The deviation of these values from the threshold value of the normal subject decides the degree of speech disability. The result of this analysis can also be used to measure the degree of improvement in the utterance of pathological subject after the speech therapy.

Keywords: Mean Deviation, Statistical Analysis, Speech Pathology, Threshold, Variance 1. Introduction
Speech is one of the very important means of communication in the society. The quality of speech is of prime importance in conveying the intelligence. However millions of people are suffering from speech disability in the world. Speech disability is also one of the most common disabilities that is largely encountered in children. In this work, an attempt is made to distinguish the pathological subjects from the normal subject by using the statistical analysis of the speech signal samples.

2. Speech Recording
The study was conducted on the children of five to eight years of age who are the native speakers of Kannada language. The data was collected at J S S Sahana integrated and special school located at Bangalore, India. Before recording, the children are trained by the teachers to speak few sentences written in Kannada language. The uttered senten ces were recorded by using IPOD (Intelligent Portable Occular Device). Speech samples of normal children were obtained at vinayaka school, Bangalore by following the same procedure. The recorded information was converted into .wav format by using GOLDWAVE software. About 30 samples of normal children were considered and the averages of these samples were taken. The voice of the child which nearly coincides with the average is considered as reference and is mentioned as normal.

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3. Analysis Procedure
The following statistical analysis methods are used for estimating the speech disorder of a pathological subject. a) Mean b) Standard Deviation c) Variance d) Median e) Mode and f) Norm. In each of these analysis methods, estimation of speech disorder is carried out by determining the threshold and comparing the threshold value of normal with that of pathological subjects. To determine the threshold for mean analysis, three utterances of word namma by normal subject is considered. Mean of absolute of each utterance is calculated. The minimum value out of the three values is considered as threshold value. The same procedure is followed for other analysis methods. To decide the overall speech disability of a pathological subject, about ten words which are related to both manner of articulation and place of articulation are chosen. Words with more than two letters result in increased computational complexity. Therefore to reduce the computation time, words with only two letters are chosen. Mean analysis of normal subject is conducted as follows. Mean of absolute value of each uttered word is calculated. Sum and average of all these mean values is determined. Standard deviation analysis is done by calculating the standard deviation of absolute values of each utterance and then taking the sum and average. Variance, median and mode analysis is also carried out in the same manner. This analysis is repeated for the same words uttered by the three pathological subjects. In each case, length of the word uttered by the pathological subject is made equal to that of normal subject. Mean deviation of normal subject is obtained by subtracting the threshold value of mean from the mean values of individual words and sum of absolute mean deviation. Deviation of standard deviation is obtained by subtracting threshold value of standard deviation from the standard deviation values of the all the words and sum of absolute of these values are obtained. This analysis is repeated for mode, variance and median values. The above analysis is repeated for the speech signal samples of the three pathological subjects.

4. Experimental Results
a) Mean Value Analysis

Figure 1. Plot of Mean value of Normal and Pathological Subject 1

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Figure 2. Plot of Mean value of Normal and Pathological Subject 2

Figure 3. Plot of Mean value of Normal and Pathological Subject 3 The plot of mean value of each of the ten words uttered by normal subject and three pathological subjects is indicated in Figure1, Figure 2 and Figure 3. It c an be observed from the above three figures that Pathological subject 1 is having mild severity, Pathological subject 2 is having moderate severity and Pathological subject 3 is having severe speech disability.

Table 1. Sum of Absolute Mean Values Normal Subject

0.8460

Pathological Subject 1
1.0825

Pathological Subject 2
1.7281

Pathological Subject 3
2.0487

Table 2. Sum of Absolute Mean Deviation Normal Subject

0.2288

Pathological Subject 1
0.2394

Pathological Subject 2
0.9940

Pathological Subject 3
1.1942

b) Standard Deviation Analysis

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Figure 4. Plot of Standard Deviation value of Normal and Pathological Subject 1

Figure 5. Plot of Standard Deviation value of Normal and Pathological Subject 2

Figure 6. Plot of Standard Deviation value of Normal and Pathological Subject 3 Table 3. Sum of Absolute Standard Deviation Normal Subject
0.7899

Pathological Subject 1
1.0277

Pathological Subject 2
1.4361

Pathological Subject 3
1.9782

Table 4. Sum of Absolute Value of Difference of Standard Deviation

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Normal Subject
0.3117

International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 3, No.4, 2011 Pathological Pathological Pathological Subject 1 Subject 2 Subject 3
0.2548 0.7018 1.1173

c) Variance Analysis

Figure 7. Plot of Variance value of Normal and Pathological Subject 1

Figure 8. Plot of Variance value of Normal and Pathological Subject 2

Figure 9. Plot of Variance value of Normal and Pathological Subject 3 Table 5. Sum of Absolute Variance

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Normal Subject
0.0723

International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 3, No.4, 2011 Pathological Pathological Pathological Subject 1 Subject 2 Subject 3
0.1131 0.2349 0.4288

Table 6. Sum of Absolute Value of Variance Deviation Normal Subject

0.0532

Pathological Subject 1
0.0529

Pathological Subject 2
0.1746

Pathological Subject 3
0.3547

d) Median Analysis

Figure 10. Plot of Median value of Normal and Pathological Subject 1

Figure 11. Plot of Median value of Normal and Pathological Subject 2

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Figure 12. Plot of Median value of Normal and Pathological Subject 3

Table 7. Sum of Absolute Value of Median Normal Subject

0.6221

Pathological Subject 1
0.7704

Pathological Subject 2
1.3732

Pathological Subject 3
1.3163

Table 8. Sum of Absolute Value of Median Deviation Normal Subject

0.1585

Pathological Subject 1
0.1875

Pathological Subject 2
0.8497

Pathological Subject 3
0.7325

e) Mode Value Analysis

Figure 13. Plot of Mode value of Normal and Pathological Subject 1

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Figure 14. Plot of Mode value of Normal and Pathological Subject 2

Figure 15. Plot of Mode value of Normal and Pathological Subject 3 Table 9. Sum of Absolute Mode Value Normal Subject
0.1212

Pathological Subject 1
0.2284

Pathological Subject 2
1.3542

Pathological Subject 3
4.1599

Table 10. Sum of Absolute Value of Mode Deviation Normal Subject

0.0821

Pathological Subject 1
0.2029

Pathological Subject 2
1.2849

Pathological Subject 3
4.1105

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f) Norm Value Analysis

Figure 16. Plot of Norm value of Normal and Pathological Subject 1

Figure 17. Plot of Norm value of Normal and Pathological Subject 2

Figure 18. Plot of Norm value of Normal and Pathological Subject 3 Table 11. Sum of Absolute Norm Value Normal Subject
138.6315

Pathological Subject 1
176.2473

Pathological Subject 2
273.0538

Pathological Subject 3
353.8877

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 3, No.4, 2011 Table 12. Sum of Absolute Value of Norm Deviation Normal Subject
69.4372

Pathological Subject 1
58.0068

Pathological Subject 2
134.4720

Pathological Subject 3
188.9382

Table 13. Average of Mean Values Normal Subject

0.0846

Pathological Subject 1
0.1083

Pathological Subject 2
0.1728

Pathological Subject 3
0.2049

Table 14. Average of Standard Deviation Values Normal Subject

0.0790

Pathological Subject 1
0.1028

Pathological Subject 2
0.1436

Pathological Subject 3
0.1978

Table 15. Average of Variance Values Normal Subject

0.0072

Pathological Subject 1
0.0113

Pathological Subject 2
0.0235

Pathological Subject 3
0.0429

Table 16. Average of Median Values Normal Subject

0.0622

Pathological Subject 1
0.0770

Pathological Subject 2
0.1373

Pathological Subject 3
0.1316

Table 17. Average of Mode Values Normal Subject

0.0121

Pathological Subject 1
0.0228

Pathological Subject 2
0.1354

Pathological Subject 3
0.4160

Table 18. Average of Norm Values Normal Subject

13.8632

Pathological Subject 1
17.6247

Pathological Subject 2
27.3054

Pathological Subject 3
35.3888

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5. Summary of Analysis
Table 19. Summary of Analysis Analysis Method
Mean Value Sum of absolute Mean value Sum of absolute Mean deviation Standard Deviation Sum of absolute Variance value Sum of absolute Variance deviation Variance Sum of absolute Standard Deviation value Sum of absolute deviation of Standard Deviation Median Value Sum of absolute Median value Sum of absolute Median deviation Mode Value Sum of absolute Mode value Sum of absolute Mode deviation Norm Value Sum of absolute Norm value sum of absolute Norm deviation Average of Mean Average of Standard Deviation Average of Variance Average of Median Average of Mode Average of Norm

Pathological Subject 1
Small Small Small Small Small

Pathological Subject 2
Large Large Moderate Moderate Moderate

Pathological Subject 3
Large Large Large Large Large

Small Small Small Small Small Small Small Small Small Small Small Small Small

Moderate Large Large Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate Large Large

Large Large Large Large Large Large Large Moderate Large Large Moderate Large Large

From the Table 19 It can be concluded that Pathological Subject 1 is having mild severity, Pathological Subject 2 is having moderate severity and Pathological Subject 3 is having severe speech disability.

6. Conclusion
The paper presents statistical analysis methods to estimate the overall speech disorder of a pathological subject. The automatic classification of speech disorder helps the speech therapist to analyze the severity of speech disability. This can also be used to check the degree of improvement of utterance after the training by speech therapist.

7. Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank the management of Sri Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain college of Engineering, Bangalore, Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, Bangalore, J.S.S. Sahana integrated and special school, Bangalore, for their Constant support and encouragement in undertaking the research work.

8. References

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 3, No.4, 2011 [1] Anandthirtha B Gudi, Shreedhar H.K and Dr. H. C. Nagaraj, Difference Ratio Analysis of Speech to Estimate the Severity of Speech Disability - 2011 3rd International Conference on Computer Modeling and Simulation (ICCMS 2011) [2] Anandthirtha B Gudi, Shreedhar H.K and Dr. H. C. Nagaraj,Signal Processing Techniques to Estimate the Severity of Speech Disability in Children IACSIT International Journal of Engineering and Technology, Vol.2, No.2, April 2010 [3] B. Garcia, J. Vicente, I. Ruiz, A. Alonso, Multiplatform Interface Adapted To Pathological Voices, IEEE Symposium on Signal Processing and Information Technology,2005, pp.912-917 [4] Ben Gold and Nelson Morgan, Speech and Audio Signal Processing (Processing and Perception of Speech and Music), John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2006. [5] CHERIF Adnbne-Botiafif Lamia-Mhamdi Mounir, Analysis of Pathological Voices by Speech Processing, IEEE, 2003, pp. 365-367. [6] Harry Levitt, Speech Processing Aids for the Deaf an Overview, IEEE Transactions on Audio and Electroacoustics, Vol. Au-21 No. 3, June 1973, pp. 269-273. [7] Karthikeyan Umapathy, Sridhar Krishnan,Vijay Parsa and Donald G. Jamieson, Discrimination of Pathological Voices Using a Time-Frequency Approach, IEEE Tansactions on Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 52, No. 3, March 2005, pp 421-430 [8] Maria Markaki and Yannis Stylianou, Using Modulation Spectra for Voice Pathology Detection and Classification, 31st Annual International Conference of the IEEE EMBS Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, September 2-6, 2009, pp 2514-2517. [9] Martinez Cdsar E and Rufiner Hugo L, Acoustic Analysis of Speech for Detection of Laryngeal Pathologies Proceedings of the 22nd Annual EMBS International Conference, July 23-28, 2000, Chicago IL, pp2369-2372 [10] Wieslaw Wszd-ek', Ryszard Tadeusiewicz, Andrzej Izworski' and Tadeusz Wszolek', Automated Understanding of Selected Voice Tract Pathologies Based on the Speech Signal Analysis, 2001 Proceedings of the 23rd Annual EMBS International Conference, October 25-28, Istanbul, Turkey, pp1719-1722

Authors Profile
Anandthirtha B. Gudi obtained Bachelor of Engineering from S.J.M.Institute of Technology, Chitradurga, Mysore University. Master of Engineering from U.V.C.E, Bangalore, Bangalore University. Professor in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Sri Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain College of Engineering, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.

H.K.Shreedhar obtained Bachelor of Engineering from U.V.C.E. Bangalore, Bangalore University. Master of Technology from B.M.S.C.E., Bangalore, V.T.U. Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Sri Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain College of Engineering, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.

Dr. H. C. Nagaraj obtained Bachelor of Engineering from Mysore University, Master of Engineering from P.S.G.College of Technology, Coimbatore. Ph.D from I.I.T.Madras. Principal, Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.

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