THRASS Phoneme Machine

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loml

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The British Education and Training Technology (BETT) show is one of the premier technology shows in the United Kingdom, where people from all walks of technology life attend to gather information about new and groundbreaking technologies. At this year’s show, THRASS (Teaching Handwriting Reading And Spelling Skills) showcased their Phoneme Machine 6.0, a synthetic phonics computer program that includes a Cued Speech option.

The Phoneme Machine software was created by Alan Davies and his colleagues in Cardiff, Wales, with the purpose of helping deaf children attain literacy. It “uses moving human lips to pronounce the sounds (phonemes) in hundreds of frequently used English words” (http://www.phonememachine. com/). It also shows how each one is cued (in cued British English).

The launch of the Phoneme Machine was held to demonstrate the software and show how it could improve the literacy of deaf children by giving them a visual representation of how Cued Speech can be broken down into component parts. Alan’s wife, Hilary Davies, presented the software at the show, and mentioned that the Exeter Royal Academy for Deaf Education already has the software. The Academy primarily uses British Sign Language for communication, but is using the software as a way to teach literacy and Cued Speech to their students. Hilary Davies noted that when the students
were using the software in the school, not only did the their understanding of Cued Speech improve, so did their English skills.

I was quite impressed with the caliber of the software and despite the din and hubbub surrounding the booth, the demonstration was well received and well presented. I learned that you can view a map of phonemes to create a
word. Once a word has been selected or created, you can look at how each part of the word is said by viewing a short clip of a mouth showing the selected phonemes. You can then choose an option to see the word cued. There were a couple of instances that I really noticed the differences between the British and American systems of Cued Speech, especially with cueing different diphthongs and accents.

In addition to viewing the software demonstration, I also had the opportunity to meet Ann Worsfold and June Dixon-Miller, who represented the UK Cued Speech Association, students from the Exeter Royal Academy for Deaf Education, and the Honorable Malcolm Bruce, MP, who championed this software for deaf children as his daughter is deaf. There were a variety of interested people who stopped to see what the software was about. For more information about the THRASS Phoneme Machine, please go to their web site at THRASS PHONEME MACHINE Version 6.0. To learn more about THRASS, please visit Web Hosting Solutions - Host or Die. thrass.co.uk/.
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National Cued Speech Association OnCue Newsletter Spring 2009
 
I can see how that might be useful for practicing speechreading, but don't understand how it would impact literacy.
 
Would you expand on your statement please. :)

How exactly do you see "that might be helpful in practicing speech reading"? Can you provide me with an example from your perspective.

As well would you you provide greater detail for me regarding the second part of your statement," don't understand how it would impact literacy." I am trying to understand exactly what you are saying.

I really appreciate the time and energy involved for your response.

Thanks.
 
loml said:
Bottesini - Did you see my question and comments?
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Yes I saw. I wasn't sure how to explain what I meant
“uses moving human lips to pronounce the sounds (phonemes) in hundreds of frequently used English words” .
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The quote looks to me like a lipreading lesson. I don't understand why that would affect literacy, which I take to mean reading skills.

Sorry I can't be any more clear than this.
 
I downloaded the software and I am not exactly sure how it works. I have no problem "lipreading" isolated phonemes when paired with cues and recongized distinctive British cues but that's where I am now. There are no "cues" on words. It seems awkward.
 
Bottesini said:
Yes I saw. I wasn't sure how to explain what I meant

The quote looks to me like a lipreading lesson. I don't understand why that would affect literacy, which I take to mean reading skills.

Sorry I can't be any more clear than this.
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Thanks for trying to provide me a clearer understanding of what you were meaning. :) I would agree that with lip reading alone, how would one transfer that skill to printed word. :dunno2: I can see how the article caould read rather confusing. I appreciate how you pointed this out.

The important component with cueing is that it is done also the simultaneously with mouth and the hand shape or placement. If I cue and do not use my mouth then it would be of no value.

When I use cueing with deaf/hoh children for reading intervention I always mouth the sound/word and cue, together. I can chunk/whole word or phoneme by phoneme their spelling etc to them. I will do this voice on voice off.

Does that make sense?

Thanks for your input.
 
netrox said:
I downloaded the software and I am not exactly sure how it works. I have no problem "lipreading" isolated phonemes when paired with cues and recongized distinctive British cues but that's where I am now. There are no "cues" on words. It seems awkward.
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Interesting. I wonder why there are no cues with the words. It would be nice to see how you feel about it once you are further into the system. I cannot download it as this is not available to Canada.
 
I also wrote this article and I'd like to clarify a few things:

1) The main SL is BSL and the Royal Exeter Academy for the Deaf relied on this. Once they were exposed to Cued Speech (a gateway to English) their English improved.

It's not lipreading skills. It's providing a visual representation to spoken language and once that was applied their understanding of both the spoken and written English improved

2) Hi Jeff! I wanted to clarify on your point that they do provide the entirety of the "spoken" word which is cued. It seemed to me that it was a straightforward process.

Ioml I think it's available anywhere, I have the demo right here on CD. Let me know if you want a copy! :-D

For anyone else, if you have any questions I would gladly answer. I feel like I am stirring the pot a bit here!
 
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