Automatic evaluation of resonance and articulation disorders in cleft palate speech

The evaluation of cleft palate (CP) speech is a critical clinical treatment. The most typical characteristics of CP speech include hypernasality and consonant misarticulation. Currently, the evaluation of CP speech is carried out by experienced speech therapists. It strongly depends on their clinical experience and subjective judgment. This work aims to propose an automatic evaluation system of resonance and articulation disorders in CP speech. The CP speech database is collected by the Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University, which has the largest number of CP patients in China. The automatic hypernasality grading algorithm is proposed to classify four levels of hypernasality: normal, mild, moderate and severe. Besides, the algorithms of automatic consonant omission and replacement location are proposed to evaluate the speech intelligibility of CP speech.