Platform

How we measure naming latency.

From the app through the recording to the objective evaluation — initial-phoneme based, precise and without complex frequency analysis.

±15 ms
to human inter-rater agreement
9'029
analysed audio recordings
16
optimised initial phonemes
4
peer-reviewed publications
Live measurement

Naming latency, measured before your eyes

Naming latency
0.00 s
Picture shown
Picture · 0 ms Speech onset
Silence until speech onset Speech signal Detected speech onset (FHNW algorithm)
The algorithm in detail

Others estimate. Neurolexi measures.

A short explainer opens the „black box“ of the analysis — and shows why millisecond-precise measurement of speech onset is the real USP.

Others estimate.
Neurolexi measures.

The patient app is only the surface. The real value is created in one step that most treat as a black box: the millisecond-precise measurement of speech onset.

An explainer in 6 scenes — from the picture to an objective progress value.
NEUROLEXIItem 8 / 20
Fahrrad
1The patient

One picture. One spoken word.

The app shows an object; the patient names it aloud. Competing apps do exactly this too — a recording is produced. But a recording alone says nothing about language recovery.

Fahrrad“ — German for „bicycle“, initial /f/, a voiceless fricative
Picture shown → patient speaks → audio is recorded.
2Speech recognition in the cloud

The word is correct. But when exactly did speech begin?

At api.neurolexi.ch a speech recogniser confirms the word and provides a rough reference time. The „what“ is solved — the clinically decisive question is the „when“: the naming latency, the objective marker of word retrieval.

Word recognised: „Fahrrad“
Confidence 92%
Reference time set

But plain speech recognition detects words — not the exact moment the lips open.

The speech recogniser validates the word and gives a reference time — the basis for the actual measurement.
3Why this is hard

The initial /f/ is a trap for standard detectors.

Voiceless fricatives like /f/ or /s/ carry almost no energy. Simple tools „miss“ this quiet onset and only trigger at the loud vowel — speech onset is measured too late. In aphasia this distorts every progress measurement.

Naive detector: too late
True onset (gold standard)

The weak /f/ frication starts well before the vowel onset.

Weak initial sound = underestimated speech onset. This is exactly where Neurolexi steps in.
4The Neurolexi algorithm · FHNW_NL

Phoneme-specific. Time-based. Millisecond-precise.

Detection window−100 … +1000 ms
Envelope + slopeno frequency analysis
Parameter set for /f/voiceless fricative
Median factor · slopephoneme-optimised

Instead of costly frequency analysis, the algorithm works purely on the waveform — light enough to one day run live in the app.

Reference time → detection window → phoneme-specific parameters → exact speech onset.
5Validated against the gold standard

Closest to the human measurement — and the most consistent.

In the published study (Rickert, Altermatt et al., 2026), Neurolexi is closer to the manual expert measurement than established tools — and scatters far less.

±15ms
within human inter-rater agreement
2× / 4×
more precise than Kaldi / Chronset (absolute difference)

9,029 recordings · 16 phonemes · schematic depiction of the published results.

Closer to the gold standard, less scatter — that is measurable accuracy.
6The real USP

One precise number becomes objective therapy progress.

What others offer — and what they don’t
Typical therapy appsno objective measurements ×
Klassische Therapiesubjective, not scalable ×
Neurolexiobjective naming latency in ms ✓
Objective, not estimated

Naming latency in milliseconds — a hard, comparable value.

📈Progress you can trust

Comparable across sessions — progress becomes verifiable, even at home.

🧠Scientifically validated

Peer-reviewed with the FHNW, phoneme-specifically trained.

Lightweight

Purely time-based — on the way to real-time measurement in the app.

What competitors estimate, Neurolexi measures — objective, comparable, verifiable.
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Why Neurolexi

Clinical insight built on neuro-language intelligence

Four principles shape every measurement — from the patient app to the therapist dashboard.

Secure & private

Swiss hosting and end-to-end encryption protect sensitive patient data.

AI-powered

State-of-the-art models for speech recognition and automatic naming-latency analysis.

Neuro-language intelligence

Advanced naming-latency detection surfaces deeper insight than manual scoring.

Evidence-based

Built on peer-reviewed research and clinical practice with Swiss institutions.

How it works

From the spoken word to an objective result

Speech recognition checks the spoken word; the FHNW algorithm measures the response.

Patient appPicture shown, patient names it
RecordingSpeech response captured
AnalyseASR ✓ · naming latency 0.00 s
PlatformResult stored in the dashboard

See how it works in practice

From a single patient to scalable therapy success.

To the clinical application →