Title of the position: Automatic assessment of the fluency of young
readers (H/F)

Reference: Post-Doc Fluence/ELARGIR
Work Location: GIPSA-Lab, Grenoble, France
Publication date : 6/11/2018
Supervisor : Gérard BAILLY, DR CNRS
Type of the position: Post-Doc
Duration: one-year contract renewable once
Start date: 1/1/2019
Work quota: 100%
Wages: 2 500 ¤ gross / month
Section CNU : 61/27

Description of the Post-Doc work

An important characteristic of utterances produced by early readers is
the prevalence of disfluencies, such as filled pauses, repetitions and
false starts. The objective of the work is to detect these
disfluencies and score their impact on perceived quality of reading
using state of the art machine learning techniques. In the framework
of the e-FRAN Fluence project (fluence.prod.lamp.cnrs.fr), we are
collecting massive data of aloud readings by pupils.

The Post-Doc work consists in designing and implementing a
multi-criteria scoring system that automatically estimates the reading
quality of aloud readings of pupils from the speech signals they
produce. The scoring system proposed by Timothy Rasinski rates several
dimensions: precision, speed, phrasing and expressivity. The system
should thus combine automatic speech recognition with automatic
analysis of prosody. The recruited Postdoctoral Researcher will take a
major role in advancing research in both topics. The position is
strongly research-focused.

Position context

At the University of Grenoble-Alpes (www.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/en),
GIPSA-Lab (www.gipsa-lab.grenoble-inp.fr/en/home.php) is a large
laboratory of 350 people. The CRISSP (Cognitive Robotics, Interactive
Systems & Speech Processing) research group (www.gipsa-lab.grenoble-
inp.fr/en/crissp/home-crissp.php) is a medium-sized team of 17 people
with 8 permanent senior researchers. We are looking for a highly
motivated researcher to work in the Fluence
(fluence.prod.lamp.cnrs.fr) project, aiming at providing
computer-assisted training of early readers at the primary school and
disfluent readers at the secondary school.

Fluent reading is in fact a perquisite for successful education. But
mastering reading automaticity and on-line production of adequate
phrasing and expressivity necessitates the acquisition and
synchronization of multiple cognitive skills in vision, language and
speech processing. The Fluence project aims at quantifying the impact
of a computer-assisted training program on reading fluency.

We will be collecting dozen aloud readings of pre-selected texts
uttered by 750 pupils and 300 middle schoolers in institutions of the
Grenoble academy. These readings are currently subjectivelyassessed
for monitoring their progress through a set of pre-defined
exercises. Readings collected in the classrooms via the Fluence app
are automatically sent at the end of each training day on a research
data server.

The recruited Postdoctoral researcher will be responsible for
constructing a software suite that automatically processes the
readings during the night and incrementally updates the indicators of
progress to the teachers.

Constraints and risks

The read speech is in French. Good level of French proficiency is
recommended.  We are seeking for a researcher with less than 5 years'
experience after having obtained a PhD in the domain of automatic
speech processing. The recruited Postdoctoral researcher will work in
the framework of the Fluence project with specialists in education and
cognitive sciences. The candidate should be thus able to work in a
multidisciplinary team.

The CRISSP team has limited experience in state-of-the-art speech
recognition but, since the text is known in advance, challenge of
speech recognition mostly concerns here the adaptation of language
models and word dictionaries to dysfluent entries. Specialists of
speech recognition as well as automatic text processing can be found
in the nearby research labs. CRISSP has a strong background in
analysis and modelling of prosody.

This is one-year contract that can be renewable once according to the
project's needs.

Deadline for application is 31th March. 

gerard.bailly@gipsa-lab.grenoble-inp.fr