Method and means for creating prosody in speech regeneration for laryngectomees

Included with this application is a compact disc named 09641157 which contains five separate files, together which comprise table 1 referenced in this specification. The file names, date of creation on compact disc and file sizes are as follows: Main program file appl 09641,157 Baraff.txt, created Nov. 15, 2002 of size 29.8 KB; Pitch program file appl 09641,157 Baraff.txt, created Nov. 15, 2002 of size 4.11 KB; Synth program file appl 09641,157 Baraff.txt, created Nov. 15, 2002 of size 5.47 KB; LPC program file appl 09641,157 Baraff.txt, created Nov. 15, 2002 of size 1.87 KB; and Vowel program file appl 09641,157 Baraff.txt created Nov. 15, 2002 of size 1.48 KB. A device and a method to be used by laryngeally impaired people to improve the naturalness of their speech. An artificial sound creating mechanism which forms a simulated glottal pulse in the vocal tract is utilized. An artificial glottal pulse is compared with the natural spectrum and an inverse filter is generated to provide an output signal which would better reproduce natural sound. A digital signal processor introduces a variation of pitch based on an algorithm developed for this purpose; i.e. creating prosody. The algorithm uses primarily the relative amplitude of the speech signal and the rise and fall rates of the amplitude as a basis for setting the frequency of the speech. The invention also clarifies speech of laryngectomees by sensing the presence of consonants in the speech and appropriately amplifying them with respect to the vowel sounds.