Patent ID: 7302389

Claim:
A computer system comprising: (a) an alternative pronunciation (AP) generator adapted to (1) identify one or more phonological processes for one or more base phonemes/clusters in a target, (2) select one or more replacement phonemes/clusters corresponding to the one or more identified phonological processes, and (3) generate one or more alternative transcriptions for the target from different combinations of the one or more base phonemes/clusters in the target and the one or more replacement phonemes/clusters; (b) a speech recognition (SR) engine adapted to (1) compare a user's speech for the target to a list of possible transcriptions including a base transcription for the target and the one or more alternative transcriptions and (2) identify a transcription in the list that best matches the user's speech; and (c) a score management (SM) module adapted to characterize the identified transcription to identify one or more phonological processes, if any, associated with the user's speech.