Students Control Pace as Computer Gives Aid on Speech to Retarded

Retarded children, brain-impaired because of disease, and those with delayed language development are getting a first chance at speech with the help of a new computer program.

“The kids who are being helped by this system are those who don’t begin to talk when normal children do,” says research linguist Laura Myers of the Department of Pediatrics at the City of Hope in Duarte.

Myers developed a computer program, now being tested on children between 2 and 16, that teaches them to talk and express ideas that “even their parents didn’t know they have.”

Myers described the children with language difficulties as those with Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism and those classified by teachers and doctors as “developmentally delayed.”

Some Would Never Speak

“Most of these children have problems with talking and don’t use complete sentences when they do,” she explained, adding that some of the afflicted children would never speak without professional help.

“They can’t store words and bring them up from memory. For others, typical speech goes by too fast, so, if they can’t perceive the speed, they can’t understand what is being said,” Myers explained.

The computer program, which has pictures that appear on a screen and a synthesized voice, slowly guides the child into using simple sentences and expressing ideas.

“The computer talks to them at a speed they can understand,” Myers said. “They see a picture of a toy and learn to ask for it.”

The linguist believes that because the children are in control of the computer they do not feel “pressured into using speech, because they decide how many repetitions they need (to hear) and when they want them.”

Learning Increases

“My studies of language acquisition show that when the children are in control over their speech output, they have increased levels of learning,” Myers said.

She discounts the possibility of the machine distorting what children learn, because it lacks the lilt of natural speech, by underscoring the importance of the speed at which the synthesized words are perceived.

“Things are said differently by different people, often there is a lot of variation in the way parents say the same word.

“The computer says exactly the same speech signal over and over again while the child learns the basic sound pattern of the word. Then, over time, they figure out how the word sounds, what the word means and can understand it even when it is spoken in different accents,” she said.

The object of computer learning is to wean the child from the synthesized voice and assist them into integrating what they have learned into conversations with family and friends, Myers emphasized.

Other Causes Cited

She said children often classified as developmentally delayed are victims of frequent and undetected ear infections that have prevented them from hearing what is said.

“Seventy-seven percent of the population of normal children have ear infections in their first two years of life causing a mild, transient hearing loss, so speech signals are difficult to understand.

“Unfortunately, that affects how they initially perceive and understand speech,” Myers said, adding that children cannot learn to say words they have never heard.

Even though mentally retarded children are not expected to reach speech parity with normal children their age, Myers said the computer helps increase their vocabularies and facility with language.

“We’re even taking 15 year olds with Down’s syndrome who have the mental age of 5 and using the computer to teach them creative writing. Some of these children come to us unable to understand syntax,” she said of the teen-agers’ inability to comprehend the order in which words are spoken.

Myers said the stories produced by Down’s syndrome teens are uncomplicated, “and can’t be considered works of art, but certainly express something no one ever thought they would be able to do.”