OBJECTIVE

Objective Task 1: Brainstorming Session

Original Brainstorm

David's ideas:

• Complete multi step station to better speech, CPU required
• Interactive book with animals and story relating to his interests and has touch activated syllables and words on the page
  • This device is meant to appeal to our client's love of puzzles/books/animal characters. It uses many simple concepts along with some slightly more sophisticated concepts. We would incorporate some sort of touch activation on a book and magnetic connection in the puzzle. It is a fairly simple soulution that will help our client by reading syllables and phrases with syllables he needs to learn to speak more clearly. Also, a voice recognition divice may be integrated in order to check his pronounciation before continuing onto the next page or to the next puzzle piece.
  • This unit will be battery powered (rechargable or conventional) and will require a speaker, touch sensors/capacitance touch sensors, recording devices, and possibly a platform and compliler to program and precess with. These components would not be an impossible or very difficult task to complete either. Packaging either divice is extremely important and will require the utmost care, possibley more time than the circuitry.

• Device that is spoken into and remembers phrases in which it cannot decipher the meaning and plays them back asking if he spoke the word correctly
• Puzzle with syllable playback and voice recognition
• Magnetic board in which cut outs of his favorite TV characters and book characters say different syllables for different positions on the board
• Music station in which words are replaced into his favorite songs and play different syllables he needs to work on with different musical tones to create songs using different combination of the syllables he needs to work on
• Device that listens for certain mispronouciations of words and then corrects them when they are said

Ven's ideas:

• Push buttons that visually show and play recorded syllables
• Device that grades how correctly a syllable is spoken
• Device w/ small pad that vibrates when it plays back the stressed/accented syllable of a word
• Device that records Adam's speech, and then plays it in conjunction with the proper sounding of the syllable
• Target problematic syllables, then have device playback the syllables before and after the problematic area
• Visibly demonstrate a person's mouth as they speak the syllable?
• Something based off of the VoiceAmp VA 601 Fluency Enhancer? Looks like an mp3 player, but actually records in real time and plays "John's" own voice back to him a fraction of a second after he speaks. (Have not verified the research behind this idea yet)
  • Interactive audio corrector
    • This solution incorporates referencing a list of problematic syllables, obtained through another interview with client’s parents, and having both an audio input and output to receive and replay the client’s speech to himself. The device will detect which problematic syllable the client says, if any, and after repeating the client’s speech, it will then playback a correctly articulated form of the word.
    • First of all, the device’s audio output can be either in the form of headphones or small speakers. The audio input will require some form of microphone or headset, and either one or two audio ports will be needed on the device to plug in the audio input and output hardware.
    • A processor/microprocessor that can record numerous short intervals of audio will be a necessity, as without the chip, the device will virtually be rendered useless.
    • Considering the fact that our client is a young child, the outside casing of the device must be resilient to accidental drops and falls on a variety of surfaces. Additionally, the size of the device must be portable, but not so compact to the point of easily being lost.
    • A display on the device may or may not be needed, depending on how complex the team would be willing to design.
    • Power source -- Internal battery requiring regular charging or batteries?

Max's ideas:

• Syllable-to-motion. Helps associate syllables with physical movement.
• Trainer. say-repeat-say-repeat (faster and faster)
• Self-coaching Toy. Plays syllable from trainers voice, then waits for "John's", then repeats it back, he says it again, repeats it back, etc etc a few times, then next sylable.
• Slow-motion sylable machine. Slows stuff down to make it easier to hear and understand.
  • The syllable training device trains the user to pronounce syllables by breaking them up and slowing them down further than conventional conventional fluency improval techniques. The system also gradually speeds the syllable up to encourage a final fluency that is comparable to other systems' results. Stage one consists of the initial introduction of the syllable. It is played at normal speed to the user. Then slowly. The machine then waits for a verbal response from the user. When the response is detected, it is recorded, then played back at slow speed followed by the idealistically pronounced syllable at slow speed as well. This allows the user to compare his pronounciation with the proper one and improve it himself. The slow speed training phase is repeated a specific number of times, then it is performed again, except with syllables pronounced at a normal speed. The system will be able to store a variety of different syllables and will choose from them randomly.

• Sylable stepping shoes. Makes him say a sylable everytime he takes a step. Racing a computer? Lighted race track? Faster steps = faster sylables = win race
• Sylable D.D.R. colorred light appears, say sylable associated with that color.