A New Sunrise For Speech Therapy: Development of SoundRise 2.0 Application

SoundRise 2.0 is an application developed in React JS with the aid of Web Audio API, designed to help people with communication difficulties, especially children. The application provides an intuitive interface that allows the user to practise speech therapy voice exercises independently. The interface consists of a sun that symbolises the user's voice and is animated according to the tonal and timbral characteristics of the voice itself: it analyses these vocal characteristics and displays a correspondent visual feedback in real time. This application is the result of years of study and research by the CSC (Centro di Sonologia Computazionale). For years, the CSC has aimed to promote learning activities that encourage children, by considering physical actions as an integral part of cognition, through the use of technological enhancement. During these years, a number of prototypes have been developed and then shelved. The aim of this thesis is to develop an application maintainable over time, undertaking a reactivation process previously designed at CSC for the preservation and reactivation of artefacts. The thesis gives an overview of the state of the art and defines the reactivation process that has to be carried out. \All the technical aspects of audio data analysis will be explained and examined, in addition to future SoundRise 2.0 enhancements, in order to improve users' communication capabilities and overall quality of life.