• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.91-98
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• 2012

The purposes of this paper is to study the characteristics of compared to the speakers voice without depression and speakers with depression, and to propose a objective method for the measurement of the therapeutic effects as well as for diagnostics of depression based on the characteristics. The voice samples obtained from 11 female speakers with depression, aged from 20 to 40, diagnosed as having major depressive disorder by an psychiatrist were compared with those from 12 normal controls with matched sex, age, height, weight, education, smoking, and drinking. The voice samples are taken by a portable digital recorder(TASCAM DR-07, Japan) and analysed using the MDVP(Multi-Dimentional Voice Program) software module from CSL(Computerized Speech Lab, kay elemetrics, co, model 4100). The result of the investigation are as following. First, the average speaking fundamental frequency and loudness range of the speakers with depression group was statistically significantly lower than that of the control group. The pitch range of the control group was rather higher than that of the speakers with depression group, but without statistical significance. Overall speech rates have no statistical difference between two groups. Second, the average speaking fundamental frequency and loudness range have statistically significant negative correlation with Beck Depression Inventory, i. e. more severe depression exhibits lower average speaking fundamental frequency and loudness range. Other vocal parameters such as pitch range and overall speech rate have no statistically meaningful correlations with Beck Depression Inventory.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.397-405
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• 2015

This survey was to identify voice symptoms and vocal-health service related experiences of occupational voice users(teachers, telemarketers, speech therapists). The 91.8% of teachers, 97.9% of telemarketers, 86% of speech therapists surveyed reported more than one voice symptom. The symptoms were classified as 9 categories(running a temperature, getting dry, dry and cough, pain, phlegm, tingled, hoarseness, cracks, swollen) and the most frequently reported from 3 groups was 'getting dry'. The 85.7% of teachers, 87.8% of telemarketers, 66% of therapists surveyed had no experience of vocal-health related services. The 19.6%, 19.9%, and 72% of each group reported they have heard both of 'voice/speech therapist'. The 36.8% of teachers and 43.6% of telemarketers answered they don't know how to use their voice efficiently and 45.3% of the teachers, 43.6% of the telemarketers, 28% of the therapists surveyed asked professional help for their voice. The result showed that most of the occupational voice users surveyed experienced voice symptoms but rarely knew professional vocal-health related services.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2013.10a
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• pp.507-509
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• 2013

This paper covers the individual with mild autistic disorder complementary and alternative communication Support program by using Android. The complementary and alternative communication is the communicative system to help handicapped people who have problems with colloquial and non-colloquial communication. In this research, we will introduce the communication manner of autistic disorder, the method of how to measure the language disabled people's selection and frequency of the words, and the basic training method of Autism people's communication ways. In this paper, we developed complementary and alternative communication system which used language representative method to encourage language disabled people to study on communication in effective way. We utilized 'TTS technology' to enable handicapped people delivering their mind with the voice; moreover, by listening their voice by themselves, we accelerated their studies on communications. In addition, by offering 'Painting function', we promoted handicapped people to deliver their purpose widely and efficiently. Also, we built the smart system in 'Painting function' to collect frequency and educated degree data from the users by using this function, we can analyze the percentage of conscious and unconscious communication way of Autism cases to help them.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.53-59
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• 2023

Detection of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) based on speech has relied on predefined feature sets due to their ease of use and the capabilities of speech analysis. However, clinical impressions may not be adequately captured due to the broad range and the large number of features included. This paper demonstrates that the knowledge-driven speech features (KDSFs) specifically tailored to the speech traits of ASD are more effective and efficient for detecting speech of ASD children from that of children with typical development (TD) than a predefined feature set, extended Geneva Minimalistic Acoustic Standard Parameter Set (eGeMAPS). The KDSFs encompass various speech characteristics related to frequency, voice quality, speech rate, and spectral features, that have been identified as corresponding to certain of their distinctive attributes of them. The speech dataset used for the experiments consists of 63 ASD children and 9 TD children. To alleviate the imbalance in the number of training utterances, a data augmentation technique was applied to TD children's utterances. The support vector machine (SVM) classifier trained with the KDSFs achieved an accuracy of 91.25%, surpassing the 88.08% obtained using the predefined set. This result underscores the importance of incorporating domain knowledge in the development of speech technologies for individuals with disorders.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.51-61
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to develop a smartphone based voice therapy program for patients with voice disorders. Contents of voice therapy were collected through analysis of mobile contents related to voice therapy in Korea, experts and users' demand survey, and the program was developed using Android Studio. Content needed for voice therapy was collected through analysis of mobile contents related to voice therapy. The user satisfaction evaluation for application was conducted for five patient with functional voice disorders. The results showed that the mobile contents related to voice therapy in Korea were mostly related to breathing, followed by voice and singing, but only 13 applications were practically practiced for voice therapy. Expert and user demand surveys showed that the patients and therapists both had a high need for content that could provide voice training in places other than the treatment room. Based on this analysis, 'Home Voice Trainer', an smartphone based voice therapy program, was developed. Home Voice Trainer is an application for voice therapy and management based on Android smartphones. It is designed to train voice therapy activities at home that have been trained offline. In addition, the records of voice training of patients were managed online so that patients can maintain voice improvement through continuous voice consulting even after the end of voice therapy. User evaluations show that patients are satisfied with the difficulty and content of voice therapy programs provided by home voice trainers, but lack of a portion of user interface, such as the portion of home button and interface between screens. Further study suggests the clinical application of home voice trainer to the patients with voice disorders. It is expected that the development study and the clinical application of smart contents related to voice therapy will be actively conducted.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.23-27
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• 2005

Background and Objectives : Voice disorders can cause problems in patients with benign vocal cord lesions emotionally, physically, economically and functionally. Neither subjective nor objective voice examinations can evaluate such factors adequately. The Voice Handicap Index (VHI) subjectively evaluates voice disorders in terms of physical, functional, emotional factors and measures the patient's perception of the impact of voice disorder. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the usefulness of VHI in the patients with benign vocal cord lesions. Materials and Method : The authors evaluated 37 patients who experienced laryngeal microsurgery for benign vocal cord lesions from september 2003 to August 2004. The VHI was used to measure the postoperative changes of the patient's perception and acoustic analysis and aerodynamic tests were also done. Statistical analysis was done using paired t-test and Pearson's correlation. Results : The VHI scores showed statistically significant reductions postoperatively. In acoustic analysis, jitter and shimmer had statistically significant reductions after surgery but noise-to-harmonics ratio did not. A statistically significant change in the average MFR and MPT perioperatively was found. The relationship between VHI and acoustic, aerodynamic analysis attained statistical significance. Conclusion : The VHI is a useful assessment tool to monitor the patient's self-perception of voice change after the surgery of benign vocal cord lesions. The VHI measurement, when combined with acoustic and aerodynamic analyses, will be helpful in comparing functional outcomes after voice surgery.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.53-60
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• 2023

This study compared the absolute error of estimated fundamental frequency (AEF0) using voice - (VRP) and speech range profile (SRP) tasks across various etiological groups with voice disorders. Additionally, we explored the association between AEF0 and related voice parameters within each specific etiological group. The participants included 120 individuals, comprising 30 each from the functional (FUNC), organic (ORGAN), and eurological (NEUR) voice disorder groups, and a normal control group (NC). Each participant performed voice and SRP tasks, and the fundamental frequency of connected speech was measured using electroglottography (EGG). When comparing the AEF0 measures across the etiological groups, there were no differences in Grade and Severity among the patients. However, variations were observed in AEF0_VRP and AEF0_SUM. Specifically, AEF0_VRP was higher in the ORGAN group than in the FUNC and NC groups, whereas AEF0_SUM was higher in the ORGAN group than in the NC group. Furthermore, within FUNC and NEUR, AEF0 showed a positive correlation with Grade, while in ORGAN, it exhibited a positive correlation with the mean closed quotient (CQ). Attention should be paid to the application of AEF0 measures and related voice variables based on the etiological group. This study provides foundational information for the clinical application of AEF0 measures.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2019.10a
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• pp.678-679
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• 2019

In this paper, we developed a medical computer application for both disable children and adults in order to provide the chance to communicate easily with others. Although there are many mobile healthcare apps available nowadays, we believe that users should also have many options for choosing different types of healthcare programs developed for computers. That's why we have developed ConWis. This application helps a person with hearing loss, voice, speech, or language disorder to communicate easily with others. Through this software, hearing and understanding what is being said more clearly or to express thoughts become easier. To use this software, patient should input a sentence and it will be converted to audio speech using built-in voices for man or woman. In addition to that, it can convert voice that is received by microphone into text and display it on the screen.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.1665-1671
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to look into changes in voice using acoustic analysis during the process of neuromuscular electrical stimulation targeting dysphagia treatment. Fifteen man with dysphagia caused by stroke was treated neuromuscular electrical stimulation for two months and intensity of voice, $F_0$, Jitter, Shimmer, NNE were measured. The results of this study that improvement in functions of dysphagia and Jitter, Shimmer were stabilized. But there was not significantly changes of $F_0$. NNE was improved after the intervention, but still showed abnormal levels. This result suggests a possibility of effects that Neuromuscular electrical stimulation has on stabilization of Jitter, Shimmer and intensity of voice.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.34-39
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• 2015

Background and Objectives:The Voice Handicap Index (VHI) evaluates the patients perception of impact of voice disorder in term of functional, physical, emotional factors. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the change of patient's subjective voice handicap index before and after laryngeal microsurgery for benign vocal cord lesions. Materials and Methods:We analyzed 55 patients who received laryngeal microsurgery for benign vocal cord disease from January 2011 to February 2013 retrospectively. There were 50 vocal nodules, 3 vocal polyps, 2 vocal cysts. VHI were analyzed before surgery and 3 months after surgery. Results:The VHI scores showed statistically significant reductions postoperatively in functional and emotional VHI (p=0.01 and p=0.034). Also, Emotional VHI score after microsurgery was higher in female than male [adjusted odd ratio (AOR)=0.292 ; 95% confidence interval, CI=0.098-0.869, p=0.01]. Conclusion:In other words, males experience significant more emotional effects that are improved after microscopic surgery.