Classification of the Speech of Normally Developing and Intellectually Disabled Children

Development of speech is very crucial for good quality of life. People with learning disabilities face challenges in communication due to deficiencies in speech production and require interventions in terms of training and rehabilitation to become less dependent. For providing specific trainings, it will be valuable to know the exact nature of these deficiencies through acoustic analysis. This study investigated fundamental frequency and intensity in a speech of 95 subjects including 39 normal developing children, 20 adults and 36 subjects with mild to moderate intellectual disability (mental retardation). The results show significant differences in these acoustic measurements. This present study also developed a model that classify the normal developing and intellectually disable groups based on these acoustic features. The findings suggest that acoustic cues such as fundamental frequency along with intensity play a significant role in classifying the groups. It was shown that classifiers with good accuracy can be built based on these parameters which indicate differentiating capabilities of the said features. Such attempts to build classification models can also aid in early diagnosis of intellectual or learning disabilities.