The goal of the research is to provide a wearable vibrotactile speech communication aid for prelingually, profoundly deaf children. The proposed work aims to achieve a design which uses a single or a few channels. A primary function of these aids shall be acquisition and enhancement of lipreading skills. Three projects are proposed. Project I is a systematic study of candidate transformations between Fo and single channel vibrotactile stimulation. Results will be incorporated in a long term evaluation of aided lipreading by hearing, "artificially deafened", young adults. In Project II, current microprocessor technology shall be used to achieve a several-channel aid that presents Fo and additional segmental information, with again, evaluation of aided lipreading. Project III is a model of the auditory periphery that will be a basis for design of a superior acoustic signal processor for aids for the deaf. The model is a computer simulation of the auditory periphery, from acoustic input to representation of temporal-spatial characteristics of neural firing by the population of auditory nervefibers. It shall include the neural coding of speech sounds as revealed in experimental work at this University. The proposed research is important for individiuuals whose hearing loss is such that they are unable to derive significant speech information from the auditory channel. Electric stimulation of the cochlea (implant) is gaining increasing attention as an aid for this population. For the post-lingually deaf adult, an implant is often beneficial; although only in very rare cases does it provide reception without lipreading. It is critical at this time, as young children are having the expensive and traumatic implant operation, that progress be made in devising wearable vibrotactile aids that provide a reasonable alternative.
NIH ExPorter
NIH ExPorter