[Athen] Synthesized Voices and Accurate Pronunciation

Todd Schwanke tschwanke at wisc.edu
Tue Oct 13 07:56:25 PDT 2009



Just following up with Terrill's question to see if anyone has access to the medical version of Naturally Speaking to determine if its text to speech is programmed to have the correct pronunciation for medical terms.

Thanks,

Todd Schwanke
McBurney Disability Resource Center
UW-Madison


-----Original Message-----
From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On Behalf Of Terrill Thompson
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 6:33 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network
Subject: Re: [Athen] Synthesized Voices and Accurate Pronunciation

Ellen,

The speech synthesizer also plays a key role in pronunciation. For example, I just tested a block of medical text using various synthesizers. Eloquence, the default JAWS synthesizer, didn't handle the medical terms very well at all, but when I switched the JAWS voice profile to SAPI 5 (Microsoft Anna), pronunciation was much better (though not perfect).

There are other SAPI synthesizers/voices available, most for a small cost; and most Windows screen readers or text-to-speech software products support switching to these if they're installed. Some of these (e.g., AT&T Natural Voices, Neospeech) have nice-sounding voices but they won't do any better than the free Microsoft voices at pronouncing medical terminology. If using a Microsoft SAPI voice and techniques like those described by Dan won't meet the student's needs, what they need is a voice that is specifically equipped with a medical vocabulary. I'm not sure what's available in that arena, although you did mention Dragon Naturally Speaking - that might be worth exploring further. Even though the student doesn't need speech recognition I wonder if by installing Dragon Medical you would be installing a medical SAPI voice that could be used in other text-to-speech applications. Does anyone know? Unfortunately Dragon Medical is pretty pricey ($1600 through Nuance) - it would be a shame to pay that much if you're only going to use one component, not the application itself.

If anyone wants to conduct their own tests, here's the medical text I was working with:

Methacholine Chloride is a quaternary ammonium parasympathomimetic agent with the muscarinic actions of acetylcholine. It is hydrolyzed by acetylcholinesterase at a considerably slower rate than acetylcholine and is more resistant to hydrolysis by nonspecific cholinesterases so that its actions are more prolonged. It is used as a parasympathomimetic bronchoconstrictor agent and as a diagnostic aid for bronchial asthma. (From Martindale, The Extra Pharmacopoeia, 30th ed, p1116)

Regards,
Terry

Terrill Thompson
Technology Accessibility Specialist
DO-IT, Accessible Technology
UW Technology Services
University of Washington
tft at u.washington.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On Behalf Of Burke, Dan (DSS)
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 2:23 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network
Subject: Re: [Athen] Synthesized Voices and Accurate Pronunciation

The main determinant of accuracy in reading is not what is doing the reading, but the quality of the electronic text that is being read.

For example, , JAWS out of the box pronounces the name of my town as Miss-owl-a, when it is commonly pronounced as Mizzoola.

So the issue is for the student to learn a couple of tricks -- stop (frequently, if necessary) and spell out words he or she is uncertain of. If they are pronounced strangely, virtually every tts package offers some way to correct pronunciation. Which is what I have done with JAWS and the name of my town.

So, the quality of the e-text -- is it a publisher file? If not, has it been properly spell-checked?

And then add to that the student taking responsibility (with our
guidance) and learning how to manipulate the screen reader to make him or herself successful.

Dan


Daniel J. Burke
Assistant Director/Coordinator
Disability Services for Students
Emma B. Lommasson 154
The University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812

www.umt.edu/dss/

406.243.2243 voice/text
406.243.4424 direct line
406.243.5330 fax


-----Original Message-----
From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On Behalf Of CUTLER_ELLEN
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 2:37 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network
Subject: [Athen] Synthesized Voices and Accurate Pronunciation

Hello,

We have a student who needs to listen to respiratory therapy text books.
Towards this end, we need to know what determines how accurately text will be read. Is it the synthesized voice? Is it the text-to-speech software? What text-to-speech environment is likely to read medical texts accurately? I was wondering if the TTS feature of the Medical version of NaturallySpeaking would do well; however, the student does not need voice recognition....

Thanks, Ellen


Ellen Cutler
Santa Monica College
Disabled Student Services, High Tech Training Center 1900 Pico Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90405
310.434-4496
cutler_ellen at smc.edu




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