Problem: Workforce Constraints and Culturally Misaligned Assessment Tools
As with many allied health professions, within the speech and language pathology field, there is a lot of work and too few people to do it effectively.
Northern Voices Speech Services found that in addition to the volume of work being unwieldy, the tools and assessment models being used were not representative of the Indigenous communities they serve and their cultural and linguistic diversity. This lead to unnecessary interventions and diversion of resources from those who truly need them.
Solution: Custom Phoneme Models Designed for Indigenous Representation and Clinical Accuracy
Northern Voices Speech Services engaged the Diffusion Studios team to develop over 40 custom linguistic models, one for each English phoneme. These models are centered around a custom avatar representative of the Indigenous communities being served and were created using motion capture technology, specialized 3D animations, and scientifically accurate anatomical structures.
Results: Scalable, Visual Speech Tools Integrated Into a Clinical App Platform
The English phoneme animations are offered through the Northern Voices Speech Service app, TeachSpeech. This app is designed to provide a visual demonstration of how each sound is formed, bridging the gap between clinical expertise and everyday use.
This informative and visually engaging tool was also created with scalability in mind. The work done to create the English phonemes has laid a framework that can be used to support additional sounds, languages, and dialects, while maintaining clinical integrity and visual consistency.
“The Elsevier team went over and above to ensure the final product was exceptional. We especially appreciated the team’s ability to make thoughtful suggestions and contribute meaningfully to the project beyond execution alone.”
– L. Brillinger, CEO/Founder, Northern Voices Speech Services
Check out this custom model and learn more:
Key Takeaways
- Northern Voices Speech Foundation partners with Diffusion Studios.
- Culturally representative tools can reduce unnecessary interventions and diversion of resource.
- Visual phoneme models help bridge the gap between clinical instruction and real-world use.