Automatic voice disorder classification using vowel formants

In this paper, we propose an automatic voice disorder classification system using first two formants of vowels. Five types of voice disorder, namely, cyst, GERD, paralysis, polyp and sulcus, are used in the experiments. Spoken Arabic digits from the voice disordered people are recorded for input. First formant and second formant are extracted from the vowels [Fatha] and [Kasra], which are present in Arabic digits. These four features are then used to classify the voice disorder using two types of classification methods: vector quantization (VQ) and neural networks. In the experiments, neural network performs better than VQ. For female and male speakers, the classification rates are 67.86% and 52.5%, respectively, using neural networks. The best classification rate, which is 78.72%, is obtained for female sulcus disorder.