Captioned Telephone Sentence Refinement for Speech Disorder Communication
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional captioned telephone services struggle to effectively communicate with users who are deaf or hard of hearing and have speech disorders, as their input often results in grammatically incorrect or ungrammatical speech, leading to communication breakdown and peer confusion.
Innovation Solution
A captioned telephone service system that integrates a sentence refinement unit to process user input, correct typographical and phonetic errors, and generate grammatically complete and contextually appropriate sentences, which are then converted into speech for transmission.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If a DHH user with speech disorder uses conventional CTS to input text directly to peer, then communication speed is maintained, but grammatical correctness and peer comprehension deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a sentence refinement unit as an intermediary component between the user input and the peer communication channel. This unit processes the user's text input, corrects grammatical errors, and generates refined sentences before transmission, thereby improving grammatical correctness without requiring the user to manually edit each sentence.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the manual mechanical process of grammatical editing with an automated computational system. The sentence refinement unit uses natural language processing algorithms to automatically detect and correct grammatical errors, substituting the need for manual proofreading and editing by the user.
2Reliability
If CTS system adds sentence refinement functionality, then peer comprehension improves, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the sentence refinement functionality into the existing CTS system architecture, combining multiple functions (text input, grammatical correction, speech synthesis, and transmission) into an integrated system. This reduces overall system complexity compared to having separate independent components for each function.
Solution Approach 2:
The sentence refinement unit is designed to handle multiple types of input (text and speech) and perform multiple operations (grammatical correction, contextual adaptation, and speech generation) through a single unified component, thereby improving peer comprehension without proportionally increasing system complexity.
3Ease of operation
If user inputs incomplete sentences due to speech disorder, then ease of input is maintained, but communication clarity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary processing of the user's incomplete input by automatically completing sentences based on contextual information and grammatical rules. The sentence refinement unit anticipates the intended meaning and fills in missing components before transmission, preserving communication clarity while maintaining input simplicity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system incorporates feedback mechanisms where the refined sentence is presented to the user for confirmation or modification before final transmission. This feedback loop ensures that the completed sentence accurately reflects the user's intent while maintaining the simplicity of the original input method.
Data Source
AI summary
A captioned telephone service system is provided for assisting users with speech disorders in communicating with peers. The system comprises a CTS server, a user device, and a user application configured with a sentence refinement unit and a text-to-speech handler. The user inputs one or more words, which are processed by the sentence refinement unit to correct errors, insert missing grammar, and generate grammatically complete sentences. A contextual adaptation module analyzes conversation and peer information to select the most relevant sentence. The user confirms, regenerates, or edits the sentence, which is then converted to natural speech by the text-to-speech handler and transmitted to the peer's device. The system further employs user and peer databases to learn from prior interactions, thereby improving accuracy and facilitating effective communication for speech-impaired individuals.