Implementation of Electropalatography and Evaluation of the Rhotic “r” Sound

The electropalatograph (EPG) has emerged as a valuable tool for addressing language and speech disorders, consisting of a palatal sensor, signal processing module, and a user-friendly graphical interface. In this study, we developed an innovative EPG system featuring a customized palatal sensor and an individualized self-calibration signal-processing module. The aim was to design and evaluate this personalized EPG system to improve the pronunciation of the English /r/ sound in second-language learners, while ensuring user-friendliness compared to existing EPG systems. The system’s performance was assessed through analysis of tongue-contact areas and /r/ pronunciation, a known challenge for non-native speakers due to its complex articulation. Seven healthy participants (four males, three females, ages 25–38) were studied, demonstrating the system’s effectiveness through recorded tongue-contact patterns and voice formant analysis. The results indicated that with visual EPG feedback, participants improved their tongue-contact patterns by an average of 9.35 %, and accuracy in tongue position for the /r/ sound increased by 49.28 % in the post-alveolar approximant region.