Patent Publication Number: US-2004043364-A1

Title: Phonological awareness, phonological processing, and reading skill training system and method

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS  
     [0001] This application claims priority, under 35 USC § 120, from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 60/103,354 filed Oct. 7, 1998 and entitled “Adaptive Auditory and Phonological Apparatus and Method” which is incorporated herein by reference. 
    
    
     
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0002] This invention relates generally to a training and assessment system and method for training and measuring one or more different areas of phonological awareness, phonological processing, auditory processing, and reading skills in order to train the individual in the one or more different areas.  
       [0003] It is well known that a relationship exists between phonological processing abilities of an individual and the normal acquisition of beginning reading and spelling skills. For inefficient and disabled readers and spellers, the impasse exists in the perceptual and conceptual elusiveness of phonemes. Phonemes are the smallest units of speech that correspond to the sounds of our spoken language. Our phonologically based language requires that students have a sensitivity to and an explicit understanding of the phonological structure of words. This explicit understanding of the phonological structure of words is known as phonological awareness. Phonological awareness skills are displayed by an individual when the individual is able to isolate and identify individual sounds within words and to manipulate those identified sounds. Phonological processing refers to the use of information about the sound structure of oral to process oral and written information. These include, for example, verbal short term memory, sequencing and language comprehension skills.  
       [0004] The English language has words that are comprised of sounds in some predetermined order. From the vast number of possible sequences of sounds, words in the English language actually use a relatively small number of sequences and the majority of these sequences are common to many words. A child who becomes aware of these common sound sequences is typically more adept at mastering these sequences when the words are presented in their printed form (i.e., when the child is reading the words) than a child who lacks this awareness of sounds. For example, the word “mat” has three distinct phonemes /m/, /ae/ and /t/. The words “sat” and “bat” have different initial phonemes, /s/ and /b/ respectively, but share the middle and final phonemes (/ae/ and /t/, respectively) that form the common spelling pattern “at”. To a child with normal phonological awareness, our alphabetic orthography appears to be a sensible system for representing speech in writing. Thus, a child may employ the strategy of sounding out unknown words or letter sequences by analogy to known words with identical letter sequences. For example, the child may pronounce the unknown word “bat” by rhyming it with the known word “cat”.  
       [0005] Phonological awareness skills are grouped into two categories including synthesis and analysis. Phonological synthesis refers to the awareness that separate sound units may be blended together to form whole words. Phonological analysis refers to the awareness that whole words may be segmented into a set of sound units, including syllables, onset-rimes and phonemes. Both analysis and synthesis skills have been identified as important prerequisites for achieving the goal of early reading skill proficiency and deficits of either and/or both of these are typically present in children with reading and spelling disabilities. Auditory processing skills, including the ability to perceive sounds and differences between sounds, provide an important foundation for building phonological awareness skills.  
       [0006] In addition to these phonological awareness skills, phonetic coding has been linked to efficient reading ability. Phonetic coding refers to the child&#39;s ability to use a speech-sound representation system for efficient storage of verbal information in working memory. The ability to efficiently use phonetic codes to represent verbal information in working memory may be measured by performance on memory span tasks for items with verbal labels. Children with reading problems have been found to perform poorly on memory span tasks for items with verbal labels. Thus, phonetic coding is an important skill for a reader. For a beginning reader, he/she must 1) first decode each sound in the word by voicing the appropriate sound for each symbol; 2) store the appropriate sounds in short term memory while the remainder of the symbols are being sounded out; and 3) blend all of the sounds from memory together to form a word. The efficient phonetic representation in verbal short term memory permits beginning readers to devote less cognitive energy to the decoding of sound symbol correspondence thus leaving adequate cognitive resources to comprehend what has been read.  
       [0007] Returning to the relationship between phonological processing and reading, an individual with good phonological processing skills and good phonological awareness tends to be better able to learn to read and spell. In addition, phonological processing deficits have been identified by researchers as the most probable cause of reading-related learning disabilities. Due to this link, many states have started to mandate phonological awareness training as part of regular classroom reading curricula. At the same time, school personnel are being required to be and take responsibility for the classroom curriculum and the remedial reading services they provide. The problem is that it is difficult for untrained teachers to train a user&#39;s auditory processing, phonological awareness, processing and reading skills. Thus, it is desirable to provide an auditory processing and phonological awareness skill training system and method that overcomes the above problems and limitations of conventional training systems and it is to this end that the present invention is directed.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0008] The auditory processing, phonological awareness, phonological processing and reading skill training system in accordance with the invention may permit a user to improve the above skills in order to become a better reader and better speller. The system may include one or more training modules that each train a different set of skills of the user. Each training module may include one or more tasks wherein each task may focus training on a particular skill of the user. Each module of the training system is adaptive so that users at various different skill levels will find the training modules challenging. In particular, each training module may change the difficulty of a task based on the past performance of the user. For example, in some training modules, the difficulty of the task is increased when the user provides a predetermined number (e.g., three) of sequential correct responses while the difficulty of the task is decreased when the user provides a predetermined number (e.g., 2) of sequential incorrect responses. Thus, the system ensures that the current task is at a difficulty level that is sufficiently challenging to challenge the user&#39;s skills but not too difficult to discourage the user from continuing the training.  
       [0009] In accordance with the invention, each training module may change one or more different difficulty variables to change the difficulty of the particular training. For example, a sound recall module may change one or more linguistic modifiers. The one or more training modules may be a sound recall module, a sound detection module, a sound blending module, a sound identification module and a sound pattern recognition module.  
       [0010] Thus, in accordance with the invention, a tool for training one or more skills associated with the reading and spelling skills of an individual is provided. The training tool comprises one or more training modules that train a particular set of auditory processing, phonological awareness, phonological processing and reading skills so that the user&#39;s skills at the set of skills improves and means for generating a stimulus for the user for each training module, the stimulus comprising one or more of a graphical image and an audible sound. The training tool further comprises means for receiving a user response to one of the graphical images and audible sound presented by each module.  
       [0011] In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a method for training a user to recognize and distinguish a sound is provided. The method comprises presenting a first and second sound to the user wherein each sound has a particular set of acoustic components (i.e., one or more of frequency, energy and duration) that distinguish the two sounds and altering an acoustic component of the first sound to be recognized by the user by a predetermined amount in order to make the sound more similar to the second sound so that the first sound is more difficult to distinguish from the first sound. The method further comprises continuing to alter the acoustic component of the first sound until the first and second sound are identical. The modified acoustic components in accordance with the invention may include frequency changes and changes in the voice onset time (duration acoustic component).  
       [0012] In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a method for training a user to discriminate a sound is provided wherein the phonetic context of sounds to be presented to the user is selected to change the perceptual saliency of the sounds in order to change the difficulty of discriminating the sounds wherein changing the ordering of the sounds is based on the phonetic context of the sounds. The method further comprises presenting a first and second sound to the user based on the selected phonetic context of the sounds.  
       [0013] In accordance with yet another aspect of the invention, a method for training a user to discriminate a sound is provided wherein a phonetic class of sounds to be presented to the user is selected to change the perceptual saliency of the sounds in order to change the difficulty of discriminating the sounds, wherein changing the ordering of the sounds is based on the inherent acoustic and phonetic properties of the sounds. The method further comprises presenting a first and second sound to the user from the phonetic class of sounds. 
     
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
     [0014]FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a computer-based phonological skills training system in accordance with the invention;  
     [0015]FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a preferred embodiment of the training tool of FIG. 1 in accordance with the invention including one or more tests that are used to train one or more skills;  
     [0016]FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating the blocks of the training system in accordance with the invention;  
     [0017]FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of the games including in the training system in accordance with the invention;  
     [0018]FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of the tasks in the sound detection training module in accordance with the invention;  
     [0019]FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of the tasks in the blending sound training module in accordance with the invention;  
     [0020]FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of the tasks in the sound identification training module in accordance with the invention;  
     [0021]FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of the tasks in the sound pattern training module in accordance with the invention;  
     [0022]FIG. 9 is a chart illustrating the differences in frequencies for English language vowels;  
     [0023]FIG. 10 is graph of the acoustic vowel continuum;  
     [0024]FIG. 11 a  is diagram illustrating varying frequencies for consonant-vowels syllables;  
     [0025]FIG. 11 b  is a diagram illustrating varying voice onset times (VOTs) in accordance with the invention;  
     [0026]FIG. 12 is flowchart illustrating a method for training a recall skill in accordance with the invention;  
     [0027]FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example of the recall training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0028] FIGS.  14 A- 14 E are diagrams illustrating examples of different views of the recall training game of FIG. 13;  
     [0029]FIG. 15 is a diagram illustrating a first task of the sound unit identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0030]FIG. 16 is a diagram illustrating a second task of the sound unit identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0031]FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating a third task of the sound unit identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0032]FIG. 18 is a diagram illustrating a fourth task of the sound unit identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0033]FIG. 19 is a diagram illustrating an example of the sound unit identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0034] FIGS.  20 A- 20 E are diagrams illustrating examples of different views of the sound unit identification training game of FIG. 19;  
     [0035]FIG. 21 is a flowchart illustrating a first task of the blending sounds training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0036]FIG. 22 is a flowchart illustrating a second task of the blending sounds training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0037]FIG. 23 is a diagram illustrating an example of the blending sounds training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0038] FIGS.  24 A- 24 G are diagrams illustrating examples of different views of the blending sounds training game of FIG. 23;  
     [0039]FIG. 25 is a diagram illustrating a first task of the sound identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0040] 5 FIG. 26 is a diagram illustrating a second task of the sound identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0041]FIG. 27 is a diagram illustrating a third task of the sound identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0042]FIG. 28 is a diagram illustrating a fourth task of the sound identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0043]FIG. 29 is a diagram illustrating an example of the sound identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0044] FIGS.  30 A- 30 F are diagrams illustrating examples of different views of the sound identification training game of FIG. 29;  
     [0045]FIG. 31 is a diagram illustrating a first task of the sound pattern identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0046]FIG. 32 is a diagram illustrating a second task of the sound pattern identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0047]FIG. 33 is a diagram illustrating a third task of the sound pattern identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0048]FIG. 34 is a diagram illustrating a fourth task of the sound pattern identification training game in accordance with the invention;  
     [0049]FIG. 35 is a diagram illustrating an example of the sound pattern identification training game in accordance with the invention; and  
     [0050] FIGS.  36 A- 36 D are diagrams illustrating examples of different views of the sound pattern identification training game of FIG. 35. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT  
     [0051] The invention is particularly applicable to a computer based training system for training a child&#39;s auditory processing, phonological awareness, phonological processing and reading skills and it is in this context that the invention will be described. It will be appreciated, however, that the system and method in accordance with the invention has greater utility since 1) it may be used to test and teach a variety of other individuals, such as illiterate and cognitively-impaired people, individuals whose native language is not English who are learning to read, and adolescents and adults who read poorly and wish to improve their literary skills; and 2) the system may be implemented on other computer networks, such as the Web, the Internet, a local area network or the like.  
     [0052]FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a computer-based auditory, phonological and reading skills training system  50  in accordance with the invention. In this embodiment, the training system  50  may be executed by a computer  52 . The computer  52  may be a stand-alone personal computer or a computer connected to a network or a client computer connected to a server. For purposes of illustration, an embodiment using a stand-alone computer  52  will be described. The computer  52  may include a central processing unit (CPU)  58 , a memory  60 , a persistent storage device  64 , such as a hard disk drive, a tape drive an optical drive or the like and a training tool  66 . In a preferred embodiment, the training tool may be one or more software applications (training different auditory processing, phonological awareness and processing skills or reading skills) stored in the persistent storage of the computer that may be loaded into the memory  60  (as shown in FIG. 1) so that the training tool may be executed by the CPU  58 . The computer  52  may be connected to a remote server or other computer network that permits the computer  52  to receive updates to the training tool over the computer network. The training tool may also be used in conjunction with the diagnostic system as described is U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/350,791, filed Jul. 9, 1999 that is owned by the same assignee as the present application and is incorporated herein by reference.  
     [0053] The computer  52  may further include an input device  76  such as a keyboard  78 , a mouse  80 , a joystick, a speech recognition system  82  or the like, a display  84  such as a typical cathode ray tube, a flat panel display or the like and an output device  86  such as a speaker for producing sounds or a printer for producing printed output. The input and output devices permit a user of the computer to interact with the training tool so that the user&#39;s skill at various auditory processing, phonological awareness, phonological processing and other reading skills are improved. For example, the speech recognition system permits the user to speak into the speech recognition system  82  in response to a stimulus from the training tool as described below. The computer  52  may also execute a browser software application in order to interact with the diagnostic system as described above and download one or more updates to the training tool.  
     [0054] As described below in more detail, the training tool may include one-or more different tools that train various auditory processing, phonological awareness, phonological processing and reading skills so that a child&#39;s proficiency at auditory processing, phonological awareness and processing skills and reading skills may be increased. The training tool  66  may keep track of a user&#39;s scores in each skill area and adaptively change the difficulty of each game in the training tool based on the user&#39;s current skills. For example, the training tool may either increase or decrease the difficulty of the training. As described below, the training tool may alter one or more difficulty variables of a current training (e.g., interval between stimuli, similarly of two different words or sounds, level of background noise and the like) to change the difficulty of the training. Now, more details of the training tool will be described.  
     [0055]FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating more details of the computer  52  that may be a part of the training system of FIG. 1. The computer  52  may include the CPU  58 , the memory  60 , the persistent storage device  64  and the training tool  66 . The training tool may further comprise a user interface (UI)  100  and game logic  102 . The user interface may generate multiple images and audible sounds that are viewed and heard and responded to by the user using the input devices in order to train the user in various auditory processing, phonological awareness, phonological-processing and reading skill areas (the “skills”). The game logic  102  may store the one or more games that make up the training tool wherein each game may train the user in a different set of skills. The training tool in accordance with the invention may use games to train the user since the user may be a child that is more likely to be willing to learn when given a game to play. In other words, the child may be playing the game and, without realizing it, also training and improving a particular skill. The training tool may also obviously be implemented using similar games with different user interfaces for adult users. Now, more details of the training tool in accordance with the invention will be described.  
     [0056]FIG. 3 illustrates more details of the training tool  66  that includes the user interface  100  and the game logic  102 . In more detail, the game logic  102  may include a game file database  110 , a score database  112  and a game administrator and scorer module  114 . The game file database may store one or more games of the training tool wherein each game trains a different set of skills. Each game in the preferred embodiment will be described below with reference to FIGS.  4 - 36 . As described above, the actual games contained in the training tool may be updated or changed. The score database  112  may store the scores for one or more users for the one or more games contained in the training tool. The score database  112  permits the user&#39;s progress at each skill to be monitored and analyzed. The game administrator and scorer module  114  controls which game is being played, the user interface for the particular game, the score of the particular game and the level of difficulty of each game. In this manner, the user of the training tool does not to keep track of his/her score or progress since the system may automatically track and report the scores and progress of the each user that uses the system. The administrator also permits one or more different users to user the training tool on the same computer and keep track of each user separately. The administrator  114  may also include statistical software applications (not shown) that permit the administrator  114  to generate statistics about the one or more users using the training tool. Now, an example of the games included in the preferred embodiment of the training tool will be described.  
     [0057]FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of the games included in a preferred embodiment of the training tool  66  in accordance with the invention. The training tool  66  may include a sound recall module  120  (called “Calling All Engines” in this example), a sound detection module  122  (called “Paint by Penguin” in this example), a blending sound module  124  (called “Pesky Parrots” in this example), a sound identification module  126  (called “Hippo Hoops” in this example) and a sound pattern recognition module  128  (called “Duck Luck” in this example). Each of these games may train one or more skills as described below. For example, the recall sound module may train a user&#39;s skills at auditory attention, short term memory, figure-ground discrimination and sequential memory. Some of these games have one or more tasks that must be completed to complete the game. More details of the games is provided in the Appendix of the provisional application which is also incorporated herein by reference. While the sound recall module has one task, other modules have more than one task and an example of the tasks within each game will now be described.  
     [0058]FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of the tasks in the sound detection training module  122  in accordance with the invention. The sound detection module  122  may include a task  130  of identifying the number of sounds, a task  132  of identifying the number and sequence of sounds, a task  134  of identifying the number and sequence of sounds in a word and a task  136  of manipulating sounds to form words. These tasks, together, train a user&#39;s skill at auditory short term memory, sequential memory, temporal processing (i.e., temporal ordering and temporal resolution), pattern recognition, phoneme sequencing, phonological segmentation and phonological manipulation. In the first task  130 , the user is asked to detect and identify the number of sounds in a series of sounds at different difficulty levels such as by varying the number of sounds presented to change the difficulty of the task. In the second task  132 , the user is asked to detect and identify the number and sequence of sounds in a series of sounds and the changing of the number of sounds presented to the user is used to change the difficulty of the task. In a third task  134 , the user is asked to detect and identify the number and sequence of sounds in a word. The identification of sounds in a word is more difficult than the identification of isolated sounds so this task is harder than the first two tasks. In the fourth task  136 , the user is asked to manipulate a series of sounds to form a new word which is the hardest skill to learn. Thus, as the user&#39;s skills improve in a particular area, the task increases in difficulty until a user has mastered the skill. Each of these tasks will be described in more detail below with reference to FIGS.  15 - 20 . Now, the tasks associated with the sound blending training module will be described.  
     [0059]FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of the tasks in the sound blending training module  124  in accordance with the invention. The module  124  may include a first task  140  of blending sounds into words and a second task  142  of identifying the omitted sound in a word. Together, these tasks train a user&#39;s skills at auditory short term memory, phonological blending, auditory and phoneme discrimination, word closure and auditory performance with degraded signals. In the first task  140 , the user is asked to blend smaller units of sound separated by a varying time interval into a larger sound unit and select that larger sound unit wherein the varying time interval changes the difficulty of the task. In the second task  142 , the user is asked to, when auditorily presented with a sequence of sound units that form a word except for an omitted sound unit, identify the missing sound unit and the word. These two tasks are described below in more detail with reference to FIGS.  21 - 24 . Now, the tasks associated with the sound identification module will be described.  
     [0060]FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of the tasks in the sound identification training module  126  in accordance with the invention. The module may include a first task  150  of detecting a sound change, a second task  152  of discriminating consonant-vowel syllables, a third task  154  of recognizing a target phoneme and a fourth task  156  of identifying the position of a phoneme in a word. The combination of these tasks trains the user&#39;s skills at auditory vigilance, auditory and phoneme discrimination, phoneme identification and phoneme sequencing. In more detail, the first task  150  asks the user to detect a change of sound in a series of sounds presented with an interval of preferably 1.0 seconds. In the second task, the user is asked to identify a pair of consonant-vowel (CV) syllables as being the same or different when the pair are separated by a time interval of preferably 1 second. In the third task, the user is asked to recognize a word in a series of words that contains a target phoneme when the words are separated by, preferably, a 2 second interval. In the fourth task, the user is asked to identify the position in a word of a consonant phoneme. These tasks will be further described with reference to FIGS.  25 - 30 . Now, the tasks that make up the sound pattern training module will be described.  
     [0061]FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of the tasks in the sound pattern recognition training module  128  in accordance with the invention. In particular, the module may include a first task  160  of identifying a sound at the end of a word, a second task  162  of identifying a sound at the start of a word, a third task  164  of blending sounds into a word and a fourth task  166  of manipulating sounds. The combination of these tasks trains the user&#39;s skills at sight recognition, auditory sequential memory, short-term memory, phoneme identification, rhyming, auditory and phoneme discrimination, phonological blending, segmentation and manipulation and word closure. In more detail, in the first task  160 , the user is asked to, when auditorily presented with a target sound or pattern of sounds, select a word from a set of responses that contains the same sound or sound pattern at the end of the word. In the second task  162 , the user is asked to, when auditorily presented with a target sound or pattern of sounds, select a word from a set of responses that contains the same sound or sound pattern at the beginning of the word. In the third task  164 , the user is asked to blend units of sound separated by a varying interval of time into a target word. In the fourth task  166 , the user is asked to, when auditorily presented with a word and instructions to manipulate one or more sounds into the word, choose a word that matches the requested manipulation. More details of these tasks will be described below with reference to FIGS.  31 - 36 . Now, a technique for acoustically modifying a sound in accordance with the invention will be described.  
     [0062] At various times, it is helpful to acoustically modify a sound or word to make to easier for a user to recognize the word or sound. That acoustic modification or enhancement may then be gradually removed from the word or sound as the user becomes better at recognizing the sound or word. In this manner, the acoustical modification in accordance with the invention may be used to adaptively train the user to recognize a word or sound. To better understand the acoustical modification in accordance with the invention, the acoustic difference between vowels will be described. However, the acoustic modification may also be used to modify consonants, vowel-consonant pairs, words and the like. In more detail, the acoustic modifications may include changing a acoustic component and may preferably include changing the frequency of sounds or changing the voice onset time of sounds.  
     [0063]FIG. 9 is a chart illustrating the differences in frequencies for English language vowels. In particular, the primary acoustic difference between vowels is their formant frequencies. In particular, as shown in FIG. 9, the average formant frequencies of the vowels are shown. As set forth in the chart, each vowel may include a first formant frequency (F 1 ), a second formant (F 2 ) and a third formant frequency (F 3 ) wherein the vowel is formed by the combination of these formant frequencies over a period of time. FIG. 10 is a graph showing the first and second (F 1  and F 2 ) frequencies for English language vowels. The chart may be known as the acoustic vowel continuum. In particular, each vowel along the horizontal axis is a step along the continuum. During the acoustic modification, the acoustic similarity of vowel pairs may be controlled by starting the user with recognizing pairs of vowels that are separated by, preferably, 4 or more steps along this continuum, such as /i-a/, for example. As the user masters the discrimination of those 4+step vowel pairs, the training tool may become more difficult by having the user distinguish vowel pairs separated by three steps, then two steps and then one step, such as /i-I/, for example. Thus, the training tool may control the acoustic similarity of the vowel pairs based on their inherent F 1  and F 2  values. Now, the method of acoustic modification in accordance with the invention for consonant-vowel syllables will be described.  
     [0064]FIG. 11 a  is diagram illustrating varying frequencies for consonant-vowel (CV) syllables. In particular, the primary acoustic difference between r-l, m-n and d-g, for example, is the value of the second and third formant frequencies at the onset of the consonant. The graph in FIG. 11 illustrates how the formant frequencies (F 1 , F 2  and F 3 ) differ at onset for a perfect /r/ (shown as stimulus  1  in the chart)to a perfect /l/ (shown as stimulus  10  in the chart) with 10 steps in between. The number of steps between the two consonants may be adjusted such that a smaller or greater number of steps may be used. In accordance with the invention, the training tool may begin by presenting the user with the two stimuli with the greatest separation, such as stimulus  1  and  10  in the chart. As the user masters that combination, sounds with a smaller separation are used. In accordance with the invention, the above acoustic modification may be used for ra-la CV pairs, ma-na CV pairs and da-ga CV pairs. In accordance with the invention, the described acoustic modification may be used for other sounds including other CV pairs, and their inherent distinguishing acoustic properties in various modules and training tasks.  
     [0065] In addition to modifying sounds as described above, the acoustic modification may also be determined by the phonetic properties of the sounds in accordance with the invention. In particular, the acoustic modification may start with a group of tense-tense vowels pairs and then continue with other vowel pairs (e.g., tense-lax). The term “tense” describes a phonetic property of vowels (i.e., vowels that are produced with tense musculature of the articulators, primarily the tongue). Within this category, 2-step vowel pairs may preferably be used (e.g., /i-e/) although a different number of steps may be used. The next vowel pair may be a front tense-lax vowel pair (i.e., vowels produced in the front of the mouth and paired such that each pair contains one tense vowel and one lax vowel. Within this phonetic category of vowel pairs, a decreasing number of steps between the two sounds may be used. For example, /i-a/ and then /i-ae/ may be used. The next category of vowels is back tense-lax vowel pairs followed by front lax-lax pairs, followed by back lax-lax pairs. By selecting and training subgroups of vowels based on their phonetic properties (front vs. back and tense vs. lax) and then superimposing the method of gradual step size reduction, a more complex and effective method of training is produced. Now, changing the voice onset time (VOT) in accordance with the invention will be described in more detail.  
     [0066]FIG. 11 b  is a diagram illustrating an example of differing voice onset times (along the y-axis is milliseconds) for different stimuli (along x-axis). In this example, nine different voice onset times (steps) between /ba/ and /pa/ are shown although the number of steps may be varied in accordance with the invention. The voice onset time is defined as the amount of time between the onset of the consonant and the onset of voicing (i.e., the onset of the subsequent vowel). In this example of acoustic modification, the time acoustic component is being varied instead of the frequency acoustic component. Thus, in accordance with the invention, various acoustic components, such as frequency or time, may be modified in order to change the difficulty of distinguishing two different stimuli. Now, the various modules of the training tool in accordance with the invention will be described. In particular, the sound recall training module will now be described.  
     [0067]FIG. 12 is flowchart illustrating a method  180  for training a sound recall skill of a user in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  182 , the training module may display visual representations of a series of sounds/words or digits  184  as shown in FIG. 13, generate written or oral instructions for the user and then generate a series of sounds with a time interval between each sound. In step  186 , the user is prompted to identify the graphical representations of the sounds/words/digits generated by the computer in sequence. In step  188 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  190 , the module may provide the user with feedback  191  (shown in FIG. 13 as visual feedback, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 13, a shield  192  may indicate a correct response while a fire hose  193  may indicate an incorrect response. In this task, a {fraction (3/2)} adaptive training system may be used in which the user may advance to a higher level (as described below) if the user has provided three prior consecutive correct responses and may be decreased to a lower level (as described below) if the user has provided two prior consecutive incorrect answers.  
     [0068] Thus, in step  196 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered three prior consecutive questions correctly within a specified amount of time). If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  198 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the number of sounds in the series, the types of sounds since some sounds are harder to distinguish than other sounds (e.g., long vowels are easier to distinguish than short vowels which are in turn easier to distinguish than consonants), the timing of the visual cueing (e.g., the visual cueing may occur at the time that the sound is generated or it may be delayed by some period of time making it hard to rely on the visual cue for help), the level of background noise (e.g., it is harder to distinguish sounds when there is more background noise) or the type of linguistic modifier including in the instructions to the user. The type of linguistic modifier may include, for example, “and”, “not”, “or”, “first”, “last”, “middle”, “before” and “after”. For example, the task may ask the user to identify a sound after a certain sequence of sounds. After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  182  to train the user at the harder difficulty level.  
     [0069] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the difficulty of the task should be reduced since the user has provided incorrect responses to two prior questions) in step  200 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus needs to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  202  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  182  to train at the lower difficulty level. If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  204  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  182 . In this manner, the user&#39;s recall skills are trained. Now, several examples of the sub-tasks in the recall training module will be described.  
     [0070] FIGS.  14 A- 14 E are diagrams illustrating examples of different sub-tasks of the recall training game of FIG. 13. In particular, FIG. 14A illustrates the sub-tasks  200 - 204  of the recalling module with a user recalling and sequencing 1 digit up to 5 digits which is the most difficult. FIG. 14B illustrates one or more sub-tasks  205 - 209  for recalling and sequencing  1  word up to 4 words which is more difficult than recalling the digits. FIG. 14C illustrates one or more sub-tasks  210 - 214  for recalling and sequencing 1 to 4 long vowels which is more difficult than recalling the words. FIG. 14D illustrates examples of one or more sub-tasks  215 - 219  for recalling and sequencing 1 to 4 short vowels which are more difficult to recall than long vowels. FIG. 14E illustrates examples of one or more sub-tasks  220 - 224  for recalling and sequencing 1 to 5 consonant sounds which are the hardest sounds to recall. Thus, the difficulty of the recalling training module increases from FIG. 14A- 14 E.  
     [0071] In summary, the recall training game may include  168  different levels of plays which teach the user auditory sequential memory, phoneme and word discrimination, auditory figure-ground discrimination and comprehension of linguistic concepts. As described above, the training may be controlled by changing the difficulty variables. Now, a first task of the sound detection module will be described in more detail.  
     [0072]FIG. 15 is a diagram illustrating a first task  230  of the sound unit detection training game in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  232 , the training module may audibly present a series of sounds to the user and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  234 , the user is prompted to identify the number of sounds heard by the user. In step  236 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  238 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  240 , the module may provide the user with feedback  242  (shown in FIG. 19 as visual feedback of a paint tube, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 19, an empty paint tube may represent an incorrect answer and a paint tube squirting paint may indicate a correct response.  
     [0073] In step  244 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user responded to a sufficient portion (e.g., 80%) of the presentations correctly within a sufficient amount of time). If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  246 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the number of sounds in the series, a varying time interval between sounds or the availability of the auditory feedback provided to the user. After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  232  at the increased level.  
     [0074] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the difficulty of the task should be reduced since the user cannot adequately master the current level of the task since he/she answered less than 80% of the questions correctly) in step  248 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus needs to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  250  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  232  to train at the lower difficulty level. If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  252  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  232 .  
     [0075]FIG. 16 is a diagram illustrating a second task  260  of the sound unit detection training game in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  262 , the training module may audibly present a series of sounds to the user and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  264 , the user is prompted to identify the number and sequence of sounds heard by the user. In step  266 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  268 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  270 , the module may provide the user with feedback  242  (shown in FIG. 19 as visual feedback of a paint tube, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 19, an empty paint tube may represent an incorrect answer and a paint tube squirting paint may indicate a correct response.  
     [0076] In step  272 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered a sufficient portion (e.g., 80%) of the questions correctly within a sufficient amount of time). If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  274 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the number of sounds in the series, a varying time interval between sounds or the availability of the auditory feedback provided to the user. After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  262 .  
     [0077] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the difficulty of the task should be reduced since the user cannot adequately master the current level of the task since he/she answered less than 80% of the questions correctly) in step  276 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus needs to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  278  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  262 . If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  280  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  262 . Now, a third task of the sound unit identification training module will be described.  
     [0078]FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating a third task  290  of the sound unit detection training game in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  292 , the training module may audibly present a word to the user and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  294 , the user is prompted to identify the number and sequence of sounds (which may include either syllables or phonemes where syllables are more easily detected than phonemes) in the word heard by the user. For example, “cat” has three sound units. In step  296 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  298 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  300 , the module may provide the user with feedback  242  (shown in FIG. 19 as visual feedback of a paint tube, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 19, an empty paint tube may represent an incorrect answer and a paint tube squirting paint may indicate a correct response.  
     [0079] In step  302 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered a sufficient portion (e.g., 80%) of the questions correctly within a sufficient amount of time). If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  304 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the number of sounds in the word, the availability of auditory feedback provided to the user, and the syllable structure of the word. The syllable structure of the word is the number and sequence of vowels (v) and consonants (c) in a word. For example, the word “on” has a syllable structure of “vc”, the word “cat” has a syllable structure of “cvc” and “stop” has a syllable structure of “ccvc”. In general, the easiest syllable structure is “vc” while the most difficult syllable structure is “cccvcc”. In a preferred embodiment of the training tool, the syllable structures range from “vc” to “ccvc” or “cvcc”. After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  292 .  
     [0080] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the difficulty of the task should be reduced since the user cannot adequately master the current level of the task since he/she answered less than 80% of the questions correctly) in step  306 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus needs to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  308  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  292 . If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  310  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  292 . Now, a fourth third task of the sound unit identification training module will be described.  
     [0081]FIG. 18 is a diagram illustrating a fourth task  320  of the sound unit detection training game in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  322 , the training module may audibly present a series of sounds to the user and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  324 , the user is prompted to manipulate the sounds to form a new word. For example, the user may be asked to use one or more phonemes to form a new word. In step  326 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  328 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  330 , the module may provide the user with feedback  242  (shown in FIG. 19 as visual feedback of a paint tube, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 19, an empty paint tube may represent an incorrect answer and a paint tube squirting paint may indicate a correct response.  
     [0082] In step  332 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered a sufficient portion (e.g., 80%) of the questions correctly within a sufficient amount of time). If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  334 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the number of sounds in the series, the availability of the auditory feedback provided to the user, and the type of manipulation requested. For example, the user may be requested to manipulate a word by re-arranging phonemes, deleting a phoneme, replacing a phoneme, or inserting a phoneme which each have a different level of difficulty. After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  322 .  
     [0083] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the difficulty of the task should be reduced since the user cannot adequately master the current level of the task since he/she answered less than 80% of the questions correctly) in step  336 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus need to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  338  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  322 . If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  340  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  322 . Now, an example of the sound unit identification training module user interface will be described.  
     [0084]FIG. 19 is a diagram illustrating an example of the sound unit detection training game user interface  350  in accordance with the invention. The user interface may include the visual feedback  242  as described above, a pause button  352  to pause the game, a speaker icon  354  so that the user may request that the sound is replayed, one or more different colored sponge prints  356  each representing a click of the button by the user, and one or more different color paintcans  358 . During the game, the user hears a word, such as “dog” and clicks on three different color paintcans indicating that the word has three different sounds. As the user clicks on the paintcans, one or more sponge prints may appear to provide the user with feedback about the number of clicks the user has made. Now, several example of the tasks of the sound unit detection module will be described.  
     [0085] FIGS.  20 A- 20 E are diagrams illustrating examples of different views of the sound unit detection training game of FIG. 19. In particular, FIG. 20A illustrates a screen  360  in which the user is counting the number and sequence of speech sounds while FIG. 20B illustrates a screen  362  in which the user is segmenting sounds in a word. As illustrated, each sub-task may use the same user interface with changing stimulus. Thus, in FIG. 20C, a screen  364  is shown in which the user counts and sequences speech sounds, FIG. 20D shows a screen  366  in which the user segments and sequences sounds within a word, and FIG. 20E shows a screen  368  in which a user manipulates speech sounds to generate a new word.  
     [0086] In summary, the sound unit detection module may contain 68 different levels (in a preferred embodiment) which teaches a user to count and sequence sounds in a series of sounds or in words and to create new words by deleting, adding, substituting and rearranging sounds. As described above, the tasks in the game may be controlled and adjusted based on the difficulty variables at each level of training. Now, the tasks incorporated into a preferred embodiment of the blending sound training game in accordance with the invention will be described.  
     [0087]FIG. 21 is a flowchart illustrating a first task  380  of the blending sounds training game in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  382 , the training module may audibly present the segmented sound units of a target word to the user and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  384 , the user is prompted to identify the word heard based on the segmented sound units. For example, the user may hear “di” “no” and “saur” separated from each other by a varying interval of time and the proper response should be “dinosaur”. In step  386 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  388 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  390 , the module may provide the user with feedback  392  (shown in FIG. 23 as visual feedback, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 23, a gem  394  may indicate a correct answer and a coconut  396  may indicate an incorrect response.  
     [0088] In step  398 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered three questions in a row correctly). In this task, a {fraction (3/2)} adaptive training system may be used in which the user must provide three correct responses in a row to advance to the next level and if the user provides two incorrect responses in a row, the user&#39;s level is decreased. If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  400 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the size of the sounds units since smaller sound units (e.g, speech sounds) are harder to put together than are larger sounds units (e.g., syllables), the time between the sounds units, the number of perceptually similar response choices, the number of units of sound or the syllable structure of the target word (as described above). After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  382 .  
     [0089] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the user has provided two incorrect answers in a row) in step  402 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus need to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  404  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  382 . If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  406  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  382 . Now, a second task of the blending sounds training game will be described.  
     [0090]FIG. 22 is a flowchart illustrating a second task  410  of the blending sounds training game in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  412 , the training module may audibly present sound units of a word with one unit omitted (e.g., /c/ and /t/ for “cat”) and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  414 , the user is prompted to identify the word heard based on the sound units heard combined with the omitted sound unit. For example, the user may hear /c/ and /a/ and the proper response should be “cat”. In step  416 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  418 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  420 , the module may provide the user with feedback  392  (shown in FIG. 23 as visual feedback, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 23, a gem  394  may indicate a correct answer and a coconut  396  may indicate an incorrect response.  
     [0091] In step  422 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered three questions in a row correctly). In this task, a {fraction (3/2)} adaptive training system may be used in which the user must provide three correct responses in a row to advance to the next level and if the user provides two incorrect responses in a row, the user&#39;s level is decreased. If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  424 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the size of the sounds units since smaller sound units are harder to put together than are larger sound units, the number of sounds units in the word, the syllable structure of the target word (as described above), or the position in the word of the omitted sound (e.g., it is harder to guess when the omitted sound is at the start of the word than if the omitted sounds is at the end of the word). The position of the omitted sound in the word may be the initial sound, a medial sound or the ending sound. After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  412 .  
     [0092] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the user has provided two incorrect answers in a row) in step  426 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus need to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  428  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  412 . If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  430  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  412 . Now, an example of the user interface for the blending sounds training module will be described.  
     [0093]FIG. 23 is a diagram illustrating an example of a user interface  438  of the sound blending training game in accordance with the invention that may include the feedback  392  and one or more graphical representations  440  of words. In operation, the user may hear the sounds /t/, /r/ and /ee/ separately (or with one sound unit omitted) and then blend the sounds together to form the word “tree” and then click the appropriate picture  440  of the tree. FIGS.  24 A- 24 G are diagrams illustrating examples of different views of sub-tasks of the blending sounds training game of FIG. 23. In particular, each sub-task may use the same user interface, but will train different skills as described above. Thus, as described in ascending order of difficulty, a sub-task  442  (shown in FIG. 24A) trains a user&#39;s skill at blending two syllables into a word, a sub-task  444  (as shown in FIG. 24B) trains a user&#39;s skills at blending three syllables into a word, a sub-task  446  (FIG. 24C) trains a user&#39;s skill at blending four syllables into a word, a sub-task  448  trains a user&#39;s skill at blending two phonemes into a word, a sub-task  450  trains a user&#39;s skill at blending three phonemes into a word, a sub-task  452  trains a user&#39;s skill at blending four phonemes into a word, and a sub-task  454  trains a user&#39;s skill at word closure (e.g., a user fills in missing syllables or phonemes into a word).  
     [0094] In summary, the blending sounds training game may include  60  different levels which train a user to blend syllables and phonemes into words. Once the blending has been mastered, the user may be trained to complete words by filling in missing syllables or phonemes. As described above, the difficulty of the training may be adjusted adaptively by changing one or more difficulty variables. Now, the tasks in a preferred embodiment of a sound identification training module will be described in more detail.  
     [0095]FIG. 25 is a diagram illustrating a first task  460  of the sound identification training game in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  462 , the training module may audibly present a sound repeatedly to the user and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  464 , the user is prompted to identify when the sound changes. For example, the module may generate one or more acoustically modified sounds as described above, such as frequency changes and voice onset time changes. In step  466 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  468 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  470 , the module may provide the user with feedback  472  (shown in FIG. 29 as visual feedback, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 29, a hippo score  474  may indicate a correct answer and a rhino score  476  may indicate an incorrect response.  
     [0096] In step  478 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered three questions in a row correctly). In this task, a {fraction (3/2)} adaptive training system may be used in which the user must provide three correct responses in a row to advance to the next level and if the user provides two incorrect responses in a row, the user&#39;s level is decreased. If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  480 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the type of sound (vowel, consonant, etc.), the acoustic and perceptual differences between the sounds (which may be modified by the acoustic modifier as described above such as the differences in the frequency components and duration of the voice onset time), the phonetic context, and perceptual saliency of the sound.  
     [0097] The phonetic context refers to the neighboring, adjacent speech sounds, either before or after the target sound. Because of the way that sounds are co-articulated in connected speech, adjacent sounds affect the acoustic properties of the target sound and thereby affect its perceptual saliency and the level of perceptual difficulty. Some phonetic contexts have greater impact than others. For example, the /r/ and /l/ have a significant impact on the preceding vowel. In this context, the acoustic properties of the vowel are, in essence, distorted making this context more difficult that perceiving a vowel in isolation or in a different phonetic context, such as when it is followed by /t/. The acoustic and perceptual saliency refers to the inherent acoustic properties of sounds. Some sounds inherently have robust acoustic properties (energy, frequency and duration) making them relatively easy to perceive. Other sounds have weak acoustic cues which make them more difficult to perceive. For example, long vowels have more acoustic energy than short vowels and so are more salient. As another example, the consonants r-l (known as liquid consonants) are longer in duration than the consonants d-g (known as stop consonants) and therefore are more easily perceived. As a final example, the liquid consonants, r-l, have their acoustic energy distributed across a wide frequency range in comparison to the consonants m-n (known as nasal consonants), which have their acoustic energy concentrated in the low frequency range, thus making m-n less perceptually salient. After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  462 .  
     [0098] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the user has provided two incorrect answers in a row) in step  482 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus need to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  484  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  462 . If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  486  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  462 . Now, a second task of the sound identification module will be described.  
     [0099]FIG. 26 is a diagram illustrating a second task  490  of the sound identification training game in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  492 , the training module may audibly present two sound stimuli to the user and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  494 , the user is prompted to identify if the sounds are the same or different. In step  496 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  498 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  500 , the module may provide the user with feedback  472  (shown in FIG. 29 as visual feedback, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 29, a hippo score  474  may indicate a correct answer and a rhino score  476  may indicate an incorrect response.  
     [0100] In step  502 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered three questions in a row correctly). In this task, a {fraction ( 3 / 2 )} adaptive training system may be used in which the user must provide three correct responses in a row to advance to the next level and if the user provides two incorrect responses in a row, the user&#39;s level is decreased. If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  504 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the acoustic and perceptual differences between the sounds (which may be modified by the acoustic modifier as described above), and the inherent acoustic and perceptual saliency of the sound as described above. After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  492 .  
     [0101] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the user has provided two incorrect answers in a row) in step  506 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus need to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  508  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  492 . If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  510  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  492 . Now, a third task of the sound identification module will be described.  
     [0102]FIG. 27 is a diagram illustrating a third task  520  of the sound identification training game in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  522 , the training module may audibly present a target sound and a series of words to the user and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  524 , the user is prompted to identify the word that contains the target sound. For example, the target sound may /b/ and a proper response is “ball”. In step  526 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  528 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  530 , the module may provide the user with feedback  472  (shown in FIG. 29 as visual feedback, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 29, a hippo score  474  may indicate a correct answer and a rhino score  476  may indicate an incorrect response.  
     [0103] In step  532 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered three questions in a row correctly). In this task, a {fraction (3/2)} adaptive training system is used in which the user must provide three correct responses in a row to advance to the next level and if the user provides two incorrect responses in a row, the user&#39;s level is decreased. If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  534 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the acoustic and perceptual saliency of the target sound. After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  522 .  
     [0104] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the user has provided two incorrect answers in a row) in step  536 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus need to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  538  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  522 . If the user has not met the. decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  540  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  522 . Now, a fourth task of the sound identification module will be described.  
     [0105]FIG. 28 is a diagram illustrating a fourth task  550  of the sound identification training game in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  552 , the training module may audibly present a target sound and a word to the user and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  554 , the user is prompted to identify the position of the sound in the word. For example, the module may generate the sound /c/ and the word “cat” and the proper response is to identify the sound as being at the beginning of the word. In step  556 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  558 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  560 , the module may provide the user with feedback  472  (shown in FIG. 29 as visual feedback, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 29, a hippo score  474  may indicate a correct answer and a rhino score  476  may indicate an incorrect response.  
     [0106] In step  562 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered three questions in a row correctly). In this task, a {fraction (3/2)} adaptive training system may be used in which the user must provide three correct responses in a row to advance to the next level and if the user provides two incorrect responses in a row, the user&#39;s level is decreased. If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  564 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the acoustic and perceptual saliency of the sound. After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  552 .  
     [0107] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the user has provided two incorrect answers in a row) in step  566 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus need to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  568  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  552 . If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  570  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  552 . Now, an example of the user interface and an example of the sub-tasks will be described.  
     [0108]FIG. 29 is a diagram illustrating an example of the user interface  580  of the sound identification training game in accordance with the invention. In addition to the feedback  472 , the user interface may also include a picture of a hippo (the user) shooting baskets against a rhino (the computer). In playing the game, the user may listen to a target sound (e.g., “e”) and listen to series of words while holding down the mouse button. The user is then supposed to release the mouse button when the user hears the word containing the sound. FIGS.  30 A- 30 F are diagrams illustrating examples of different views of the sub-tasks of the sound identification training game of FIG. 29. Each sub-task may use the same basic user interface of FIG. 29 with different sound stimulus. For example, FIG. 30A illustrates a sub-task  582  for training a user&#39;s discrimination of vowels, FIG. 30B illustrates a sub-task  584  for discriminating between consonants in minimal pair CV syllables, FIG. 30C illustrates a sub-task  586  for training a user&#39;s recognition of diphthongs in a word, FIG. 30D illustrates a sub-task  588  for training a user&#39;s recognition of tense vowels in a word, FIG. 30E illustrates a sub-task  590  for training a user&#39;s recognition of lax vowels in a word and FIG. 30F illustrates a sub-task  592  for training a user&#39;s identification of the position of a consonant sound in a word.  
     [0109] In summary, the sounds change identification module may include 155 levels that use natural and computer-generated speech to train users to discriminate vowels and consonant sounds. The user may also be trained to recognize sounds and to identify positions of sounds in words. In addition, sound-symbol correspondence for vowels, vowel digraphs, diphthongs consonants and consonant blends may be presented to the user. As described above, the difficulty of the training may be adaptively changed using the difficulty variables. Now, a preferred embodiment of the sound pattern recognition training module will be described.  
     [0110]FIG. 31 is a diagram illustrating a first task  600  of the sound pattern recognition training game in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  602 , the training module may audibly present a target sound or target sound pattern and a series of words to the user and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  604 , the user is prompted to identify when the user hears the word that contains the target sound. For example, the target sound may /b/ and a proper response is “cab”. In step  606 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  608 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  610 , the module may provide the user with feedback  612  (shown in FIG. 35 as visual feedback, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 35, a lightbulb  613  may illuminate to indicate a correct answer and a unilluminated light may indicate an incorrect answer.  
     [0111] In step  614 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered three questions in a row correctly). In this task, a {fraction (3/2)} adaptive training system may be used in which the user must provide three correct responses in a row to advance to the next level and if the user provides two incorrect responses in a row, the user&#39;s level is decreased. If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  616 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the complexity of the sound pattern, the perceptual saliency of the sound pattern or the position in the word of the target sound. After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  602 .  
     [0112] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the user has provided two incorrect answers in a row) in step  618 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus need to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  620  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  602 . If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  622  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  602 . Now, a second task of the sound pattern recognition module will be described.  
     [0113]FIG. 32 is a diagram illustrating a second task  630  of the sound pattern recognition training game in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  632 , the training module may audibly present a target sound or target sound pattern and a series of words to the user and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  634 , the user is prompted to identify when the user hears the sound/word that contains the target sound. For example, the target sound may be /b/ and a proper response is “ball”. In step  636 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  638 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  640 , the module may provide the user with feedback  612  (shown in FIG. 35 as visual feedback, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 35, a light bulb  613  may illuminate to indicate a correct answer and a unilluminated light may indicate an incorrect answer.  
     [0114] In step  642 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered three questions in a row correctly). In this task, a {fraction (3/2)} adaptive training system is used in which the user must provide three correct responses in a row to advance to the next level and if the user provides two incorrect responses in a row, the user&#39;s level is decreased. If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  644 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the complexity of the sound pattern, the perceptual saliency of the sound pattern or the position in the word of the target sound. After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  632 .  
     [0115] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the user has provided two incorrect answers in a row) in step  646 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus needs to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  648  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  632 . If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  650  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  632 . Now, a third task of the sound pattern recognition module will be described.  
     [0116]FIG. 33 is a diagram illustrating a third task  660  of the sound pattern recognition training game in accordance with the invention Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  662 , the training module may audibly present one or more sound units of a target word to the user and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  664 , the user is prompted to identify the word heard. In step  666 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  668 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  670 , the module may provide the user with feedback  612  (shown in FIG. 35 as visual feedback, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 35, a lightbulb  613  may illuminate to indicate a correct answer and a unilluminated light may indicate an incorrect answer.  
     [0117] In step  672 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered three questions in a row correctly). In this task, a {fraction (3/2)} adaptive training system is used in which the user must provide three correct responses in a row to advance to the next level and if the user provides two incorrect responses in a row, the user&#39;s level is decreased. If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  674 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the complexity of the structure of the sound units, the time interval between the sound units and the presence or absence of background noise/auditory interference (i.e., extraneous auditory stimuli presented between sound units). The complexity of the structure of the sound unit refers to the number and sequence of consonants and vowels. In this module, the number of consonants and vowels for the entire word is not changed, but instead for the onset only. For example, the module may preferably begin with a very simple sound structure of C (“s” for example), proceed to CC (“st” for example) and then finally to CCC (“str” for example). After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  662 .  
     [0118] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the user has provided two incorrect answers in a row) in step  676 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus needs to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  678  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  662 . If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  680  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  662 . Now, a fourth task of the sound pattern recognition module will be described.  
     [0119]FIG. 34 is a diagram illustrating a fourth task  690  of the sound pattern recognition training game in accordance with the invention. Although the method is being described as a single task, the single task in accordance with the invention may actually include multiple smaller sub-tasks wherein each sub-task may train a particular area within the skills or may vary a different difficulty variable (as described below). In step  692 , the training module may audibly present a word to the user and generate written or oral instructions for the user for the particular task. In step  694 , the user is prompted to change the sounds in the word presented to the user to generate a new word. In step  696 , the user enters a response to the module using one of the input devices, such as the keyboard, the mouse or the speech recognition device. In step  698 , the module analyzes the user&#39;s response to determine, for example, the correctness of the user&#39;s response and performance of the user based on some performance criteria such as time elapsed during the response. In step  700 , the module may provide the user with feedback  612  (shown in FIG. 35 as visual feedback, but it may also be auditory feedback) about the user&#39;s responses. In the example of the visual feedback shown in FIG. 35, a lightbulb  613  may illuminate to indicate a correct answer and a unilluminated light may indicate an incorrect answer.  
     [0120] In step  702 , the module may determine if the user has met the advance level criteria (e.g. has the user answered three questions in a row correctly). In this task, a {fraction (3/2)} adaptive training system is used in which the user must provide three correct responses in a row to advance to the next level and if the user provides two incorrect responses in a row, the user&#39;s level is decreased. If the user has met the advance level criteria, the module may increase the difficulty of the task in step  704 . The difficulty of the task may be increased by changing one or more of a number of different difficulty variables in accordance with the invention. For example, the difficulty variables may include the syllabic structure of the word and the position of the sound that is being manipulated in the word. For example, the sound being manipulated may be at the beginning of a word, at the end of a word or in the middle of the word. After the level has been increased using one or more of the difficulty variables, the module may loop back to step  692 .  
     [0121] If the user has not met the advance level criteria, the module may determine if the user has met the decrease level criteria (i.e., the user has provided two incorrect answers in a row) in step  706 . If the user has met the decrease level criteria and thus need to have the difficulty of the task decreased, the module may decrease the level difficulty in step  708  by changing one or more of the above described difficulty variables and the method loops back to step  692 . If the user has not met the decrease level criteria, then the method continues onto step  710  in which the task continues at the current difficulty level and loops back to step  692 . Now, several examples of the sound pattern recognition module will be described.  
     [0122]FIG. 35 is a diagram illustrating an example of a user interface  720  of the sound pattern recognition training game in accordance with the invention. In addition to the feedback  612 , the user interface may also include one or more ducks  722  which says one or more different word endings. In particular, a user hears “Which duck says ‘sip’ without the ‘s’?” and each duck may say a word ending. The user may then click on the duck that said the correct ending. FIGS.  36 A- 36 D are diagrams illustrating examples of different views of sub-tasks of the sound pattern identification training game of FIG. 35. For example, FIG. 36A illustrates a recognizing word endings sub-task  730  in which the user may be asked to recognize rimes containing r-controlled vowels, rimes containing post-vocalic /l/, closed syllable rimes and open syllable rimes. An example of each type of word is shown in the drawing. FIG. 36B illustrates a recognizing word beginnings sub-task  732  in which the user is asked to recognize single consonant blends and consonant digraphs (with examples of each in the drawing), two-consonant blends and three-consonant blends. FIG. 36C illustrates a blending of onsets with rimes sub-task  734  while FIG. 36D illustrates a segmenting sub-task  736  in which the user segments and/or deletes phonemes, onsets and rimes.  
     [0123] The sound pattern identification training module may include  142  different levels that train a user to rhyme, identify common sound and spelling patterns and to blend and segment onsets and rimes. In addition, sound-symbol correspondence for vowels, vowel digraphs and consonant blends may be presented to the user. As described above, the difficulty of the training may be adaptively changed using the difficulty variables.  
     [0124] In summary, the invention permits a user&#39;s skills at one or more auditory processing, phonological awareness, phonological-processing and reading skills to be trained so that the user may become a better reader. The various skills may be trained by the one or more training modules included in the system in accordance with the preferred embodiment of the invention. In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, each training module may include one or more tasks (in the form of games) so that the user plays the game and, in order to master the game, learns certain skills. The skills may include, for example auditory attention, short term memory, figure-ground discrimination, sequential memory, temporal processing, pattern recognition, phoneme sequencing, phonological segmentation and phonological manipulation, phonological blending, auditory and phoneme discrimination, word closure, auditory performance with degraded signals, auditory vigilance, phoneme identification, phoneme sequencing, sight recognition, and rhyming. Each of the skills help the user to read and spell better since a person that has the auditory, phonological and reading skills are more likely to be able to read and spell.  
     [0125] While the foregoing has been with reference to a particular embodiment of the invention, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes in this embodiment may be made without departing from the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined by the appended.