Cochlear ear implants have vastly improved the lives of deaf or severely hearing impaired people by allowing them to understand speech in a quiet environment. However, understanding speech in an environment with background noise (e.g., a hawker center, a shopping mall) is challenging and music perception is quite poor. In particular, people with cochlear implants have difficulty detecting pitch and timbre, which are crucial components in being able to understand music and speech with background noise (by separating the sound of one person's spoken voice away from the other noise).
This project presents a learning environment to support children with cochlear implants understand the fundamentals of music like pitch and timbre and also learn to sing the musical notes with the help of an interactive platform. More specifically, mobile games were designed to help children improve their pitch and timbre perception through a combination of listening and singing exercises.
Though the game is intended to serve users with hearing impairment, it can also benefit other users(like users with Amusia/tone-deafness) as it encourages them to practise with more constraints as one progresses. In addition, the solution aims to be suitable for communicating the individual’s progress to speech therapists, teachers and parents by making it easier for them to participate in the whole process.
Case Study Download:
• Musical Habilition for Hearing Impaired Children......
