JP2018005204A - Articulation training system using intraoral sensory stimulus - Google Patents

Abstract

[Problem] The present invention provides an articulation training system that enables people with articulation disorders to practice speech training at any time without the assistance of a specialist. [Solution] The present invention is a new articulation training support system that guides the tongue to the correct position by placing a member that provides sensory stimuli such as vibration, pressure, electricity, and heat in the oral cavity and directly or indirectly applying sensory stimuli to any point, including the articulation point. [Selected Figure] Figure 5

Description

  The present invention relates to an articulation training system for use in speech training for persons with articulation and hearing impairment.

  Articulation refers to changing the position and movement of the articulatory organs (lip, tongue, hard palate, soft palate, mandible) in the vocal tract to generate speech sounds. The failure of the generation process is defined as articulation disorder.

According to Non-Patent Document 1 ("Speech Speaking Disorders", Medical School (2015) 117-122), dysarthria is (1) functional dysarthria, (2) organic dysarthria, (3) exercise It can be classified into three types due to disability articulation disorders. Functional dysarthria have no abnormalities in the speech organs and auditory system, and certain sonic sounds are habitually mistakenly constitutive and should be considered as mistakes in learning of dysarthria. Organic dysarthria are voices from the central nervous system to peripheral sounds. The dysarthria caused by an organic disorder of the motor system leading to the organ is considered to be a dysarthria due to the dysarthria movement. In addition, an auditory disturbance causes an error in composition, which is said to be due to an obstacle in learning and monitoring of pronunciation.

For example, in order to guide accurate articulation to a hearing impaired person with insufficient auditory feedback, visual feedback using acoustic spectrograms and electropalatograms must be relied on, but fine articulation learning Therefore, the reality is that there are few people with visual impairment who can learn articulation and movement sufficiently from visual information alone.

Recently, it is considered effective for a speech hearing person to teach the senses in the oral cavity by directly touching the appropriate position (articulation point) of the tongue with the finger or a cotton swab on the palate of a hearing impaired person. However, it is impossible to keep touching the articulation point during pronunciation, and the touched feeling disappears with time, so there are many cases where accurate pronunciation is not achieved.

Considering the training effect, it is desirable to carry out multiple trainings continuously every day, but there is a limit to self-training at home without specialized knowledge. Therefore, it is desired to realize a self-training support system that can perform articulation training and oral motion training based on evidence and can visualize the effects.

The present invention provides a new articulation training support system that guides the tongue to the correct position by installing a member that gives sensory stimulation such as vibration, pressure, electricity, heat, etc. in the oral cavity and directly applying the stimulation to the articulation point. To do.

According to the present invention, even if there is no language hearing person, a person with articulation who is in the process of acquiring a language can acquire a correct articulation point, It becomes possible to re-learn points.

Japanese Patent No. 5016117 (Special Table 2011-510349)

"Speech and speech disability", Medical School (2015) 117-122

It is said that the method of teaching the proper position (articulation point) of the tongue relative to the palate of a dysarthria using a finger or a cotton swab, etc., and teaching it through oral sensation is highly effective, but keeps touching the articulation point during pronunciation In many cases, the touched sensation disappears with time, so that the pronunciation is not accurate.
In addition, this method always requires direct instruction from the instructor, and the instruction time is limited.

Further, in Patent Document 1, as in the present invention, a sensor capable of detecting the tongue is arranged at the articulation point in the oral cavity. However, the sensor itself simply senses that the tongue is touched and feeds back whether it is correct. However, the correct position cannot be guided to the person who performs training, and the person who performs speech training needs to always search for the articulation point with the tongue, which is not effective.

  In the present invention, a member that gives sensory stimulation such as vibration, pressure, electricity, heat, etc. is installed in the oral cavity, and the sensory stimulus is applied directly or indirectly to any point including the articulation point, so that the tongue is positioned correctly. A new articulation training support system that leads to For example, the most important feature is that a thin and flexible film-like vibration element is installed in the palate region, and a vibration stimulus is directly applied to the articulation point to guide the tongue to the correct position.

  Even without direct instruction by a speech hearing person, articulation training is possible by direct sensory stimulation into the oral cavity, and the articulation point can be set even while actually speaking while closing the mouth and speaking. Can be taught.

According to the present invention, it is possible to cause a dysarthric who includes a dysarthria who is in the process of acquiring a language to acquire a correct syllable, or to relearn a correct syllable to a dyslexic person whose own habit is fixed. It becomes possible.

As in the prior art, the method of touching the appropriate position (articulation point) of the tongue with respect to the palate using a finger or a cotton swab cannot keep touching the articulation point during pronunciation, and the touched sensation Although it disappears with time, the present invention does not cause this problem. In addition, there is an advantage that sound can be pronounced while perceiving sensory stimuli such as vibration and capturing accurate articulation points with the tongue.

Configuration example when the sensory stimulation device of this system is a piezo element The figure which shows the position of the articulation point of the upper jaw part in the oral cavity The figure which shows the position of the articulation point corresponding to the installation of the sensory stimulus applying means on the maxillary surface of the palatal floor The figure which shows the example of arrangement | positioning of a sensory stimulus provision means and a contact sensing member in sectional drawing of the a-a 'surface of FIG. Configuration diagram of articulation training system Configuration example of articulation training system (Example 1) The figure which shows the structural example in the cross section of the human oral cavity part of this system (Example 1). FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an installation example when a plurality of sensory stimulation members and position sensing members are arranged in the oral cavity (Example 2). The figure which shows the position of the articulation point when pronounced Figure showing the position of the tongue when pronounced lines Diagram showing the relationship between vibration frequency and subject's perception

  The present invention solves the above problem by effectively installing a sensory stimulation device in the oral cavity directly or indirectly, and giving a sensory stimulus directly or indirectly to any point including the articulation point. It is a system for overcoming the problem.

For example, in the case of the piezo element 4, the sensory stimulation device installed in the oral cavity can apply stimulation to the palate J by the inverse piezoelectric effect by adopting the configuration shown in FIG. 1. Further, by using the piezoelectric effect and detecting the voltage change caused by the touch of the tongue tip Ta with the other piezo element 4, it is possible to feedback whether or not the target position is correctly touched with the tongue. That is, the piezo element 4 can be selectively used as a vibration element by using the inverse piezoelectric effect and as a power generation element by using the piezoelectric effect. These piezo elements 4 may be installed at different places as shown in FIG. 1, or may be integrated as a bimorph type piezo element and installed at the same location. The sensory stimulation device is not limited to a piezo element, but may be any device that can sense sensory stimulation by a weak electrical stimulation generator, an air vibration generator, an air expansion generator, a temperature change generator, or the like. .

By arranging such an element in the oral cavity with the configuration as shown in FIG. 7, it is possible to perform articulation training while wearing the device.

By using the present invention, it can be used as an articulation training apparatus as shown in FIG.

  First, the relationship between the articulation point 2 and the tongue T during pronunciation will be described. FIG. 2 is a layout diagram of the articulation point 2 of the palate J, and A to F indicate the positions of the articulation point 2.

  The tongue T and the articulation point 2 in the sound of a healthy person have the following relationship. In the case of pronounced lines and lines, the articulation point is at the position shown in FIG. This is the position A in FIG. 2, and the tongue tip Ta is brought into contact with the articulation point 2 at the position A of the palate as shown in FIG. Similarly, when sounding a line, it is pronounced while touching B and C in FIG. 2 with the tongue tip Ta. Further, when sounding the la line, the tongue is repelled in the order of E and D in FIG. 2, and when sounding the line, the sound is pronounced while touching the tongue belly F in FIG.

Therefore, it is necessary to guide the tongue T to these articulation points 2 in order to obtain accurate and clear pronunciation.

An outline of an embodiment of this system is shown in FIG. There are five aspects of superficial sensory stimulation: tactile sensation, vibration sensation, temperature sensation, electrical sensation, and pain sensation. In this example, considering that the change in perceptual characteristics due to aging is relatively small, small and thin and can be installed in the oral cavity, and the generation force is weak and safe, the sensory stimulus applying member S is a vibration element. Sensory stimulation by vibrotactile and tactile sense was adopted.

FIG. 3 is a diagram in which the vibration element S and the power generation element P of the present invention are arranged on the palate floor 1, and the installation locations A1 to F1 of the vibration element 1 are positions corresponding to A to F of the articulation point 2 in FIG. It becomes. The power generation element P was installed at the same position on the opposite surface of the vibration element S across the palate floor 1. 4 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line aa ′ of FIG. 3 showing the positional relationship.
FIG. 7 is a cross-sectional view of the oral cavity and shows a state where the present invention is installed in the oral cavity.
In this embodiment, the piezoelectric element 4 is used as the vibrator S as shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 11, the vibration frequency of the piezo element 4 has different perceptual characteristics depending on the subject and the stimulation location as shown in FIG. Adjustment items include vibration time, vibration period, vibration intensity, and the like.

First, a stimulus application condition is determined by a personal computer 7 that controls the system in accordance with the perceptual characteristics of the individual. Start training according to these conditions.
This articulation training system will be described with reference to an example.
A signal is sent from the personal computer 7 to be controlled to the piezo element 4 at the position A1, and the piezo element 4 at the position A1 is vibrated for a certain period. Since the position of A1 corresponds to the position of A of the upper jaw articulation point 2, a sensory stimulus can be given to A of the articulation point 2. In accordance with this sensory stimulus, the hearing impaired person can move the tongue T and pronounce it while touching the tongue tip Ta to A of the articulation point 2 of FIG. 2 corresponding to the position of A1 of the sensory stimulus application point 3 of FIG.
At this time, in FIG. 1, the amount of power generated from the power generating piezo element 4b attached to the opposite side of the position of F1 from the installation location A1 of the vibration piezo element 4a on the palate floor 1 is touched by the tongue tip Ta. Therefore, it is possible to detect whether or not the tongue tip Ta has been correctly applied to the vibration position and feed back to the hearing impaired.

In this embodiment, a plurality of sensory stimulation members and tongue contact sensing members installed in the oral cavity are arranged on the entire surface or in a specific range as shown in FIG. By arranging the sensory stimulation member and the position sensing member in this way, it is easy to optimize the articulation point and stimulation conditions in the oral cavity for the individual. In addition, continuous tongue movement training is also possible by sequentially starting adjacent sensory stimulating members. Needless to say, the positional accuracy is increased by increasing the number of both the sensory stimulation member and the contact sensing member.

In addition, the voicing point can be optimized for each individual from the spectrum by collecting the uttered sound with a microphone. In the first and second embodiments, the microphone 10 is used in order to quantitatively evaluate the influence of the tongue guiding position, the contact pattern with the palate, the reproducibility and variation of the tongue movement on the clarity of pronunciation. It has a configuration that was. This evaluation result can be used to adjust the location and pattern of the stimulus.

By using this system, even if there is no expert such as a language hearing person, the dysarthria can repeat the training until they learn the correct pronunciation.

  The system of the present invention is an epoch-making system that is effective not only for persons with dysarthria but also for learning pronunciation efficiently when used for pronunciation practice when learning a foreign language.

H nasal cavity
J palate
K teeth
M lips
T tongue
Ta tongue tip S (S1 to Sn) sensory stimulus applying member (vibration element)
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Palatal floor 2 (AF) Articulation point 3 (A1-F1) Sensory stimulus provision point P (P1-Pn) corresponding to the articulation point Contact sensing member (power generation element)
4 Piezo element 4a Piezo element for vibration 4b Piezo element for power generation 5 Substrate film 6 Articulation training system 7 Personal computer for system control and optimization processing 8 Sensory stimulus drive unit 9 Touch sensing output signal processing unit 10 Microphone 11 Spectrum analyzer

Claims (6)

  By placing at least one member that can give sensory stimulation such as vibration, pressure, electricity, heat, etc. at any point in the oral cavity, including the articulation point, and applying sensory stimulation to any point in the oral cavity, the articulation point An articulation training system characterized by guiding the tongue to any point in the oral cavity, including   At least one contact sensing member that can detect the position where the tongue touches at any point in the oral cavity including the articulation point by changes in vibration, pressure, electricity, heat, etc., is accurate to the place where sensory stimulation is given The articulation training system has a function capable of detecting whether or not the tongue is in contact with the voice and feeding back to the person with articulation disorder.   The articulation training system according to any one of claims 1 to 2, which has a function of finding a pertinent optimum point for each individual and the stimulation site, with respect to a perceptual characteristic of the sensory stimulus that varies depending on the individual and the stimulation site. The member that gives sensory stimulation is a vibration piezo element, and the piezo element for power generation is configured as a single unit or a pair with the vibration piezo element. The articulation training system according to any one of claims 2 to 3, which can sense contact. 5. The articulation training system according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein an intra-oral articulation point can be collected with a microphone and the optimum point unique to each individual can be found from the spectrum. The articulation training system according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein a sensory stimulation member or a contact sensing member installed in the oral cavity is installed on a film or a mouthpiece as a base.