AusKidTalk is a project through which researchers at UNSW Sydney (The University of New South Wales), The University of Sydney, Western Sydney University, Macquarie University, and The University of Melbourne are collecting audio recordings from Australian children. This Australian Research Council Funded project aims to create a large-sized, research database of annotated Australian children’s typically developing and disordered speech for use in the development of automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems for children. The database will allow innovative research on the development of children’s speech and the role technology can play in supporting speech development. It will provide an essential resource for future studies building educational apps (e.g. for reading) and speech therapy apps for Australian children, and pronunciation coaching apps for children learning to speak English.

As well as seeking to record samples of typical speech, the researchers – including engineers, linguists and speech pathologists – will also be recording samples of children’s disordered speech. The hope is that if speech recognition systems can be taught to recognise problems in forming words by children, then such a system could not only understand voice commands from kids with impaired speech but could also be used to train kids therapeutically using mobile devices.

We are looking to collect speech from children :-

• Aged between 3 and 12 years.
• Born in Australia.
• Who if old enough, received all their schooling in Australia.

If you are interested in including your child’s speech in AusKid Talk, Please click here to take the survey.