Acoustic vocal tract model of children

Abstract

The physical shape of VT and its formant (resonant) frequencies are directly related. The study of functional connectivity is essential in speech therapy work with children. All of perceived children speech anomalies can be explained on a physical level: malfunction movement of articulation organs. Currently problem is that there is no enough data on anatomical children VT to create its acoustic model. Classical techniques for vocal tract shape imaging (X-ray, magnetic resonance, etc.) are not appropriate for children. One possibility is to use the shape of the vocal tract adults and, after that, correct it on the basis of anatomical and articulatory differences between children and adults. This paper presents a method for vocal tract shape estimating the shape of the child aged one year. The initial shapes of the vocal tract refer to the Russian vowels spoken by an adult male. We analyzed all the relevant anatomical and articulation parameters that influence the formant frequencies. Finally we got the configuration of the vocal tract for the five vowels that can be used for the initial analysis of the pronunciation of vowels children aged one year.