Range of Lip Movement During the Production of Selected Consonants in Kannada Speakers

A robotic model is being developed by the authors to facilitate Speech Language Pathologists for demonstration of correct articulation of speech sounds. This paper, as a part of the larger study, investigates the lip movement during the production of selected consonants by the speakers of Dravidian language Kannada. Thirty Kannada speaking adults were instructed to produce nine selected consonants. Lip movements were traced from still images at two defined points during articulation. Upper lip vertical movement, lower lip vertical movement, left corner horizontal movement and right corner horizontal movement were computed at these defined points. Computed values from the still images showed good reliability, when compared with the measurements taken with digital Vernier caliper. Lower values of coefficient of variation of the computed mean values indicate their suitability to be represented as normal values.