Problem Description
In the Phonetic Track of the On Top of Pasketti: Children's Speech Recognition Challenge, your goal is to build a model that predicts the speech sounds, or phones, spoken by children in short audio clips.
Unlike word-level ASR, which focuses on intended lexical content, phonetic ASR captures how speech is produced. This distinction is especially important for children, whose speech varies widely due to development, dialect, and speech sound disorders. Accurate phone-level transcriptions enable diagnostic and educational applications such as speech pathology screening, literacy assessment, and early intervention. This track brings together well-labeled, representative children's speech data to support models that generalize across ages, dialects, recording environments, and speech styles.
Dataset
Data for this challenge are assembled from over a dozen data sources collected under different protocols, with manual corrections and annotations added by our team. These sources have been harmonized to a common schema and released as two distinct training corpora that share the same structure but contain different data, and are hosted in separate locations for participant access.
One corpus is hosted on the DrivenData platform, while a second corpus, which follows the same schema but contains different data, is provided by TalkBank. Detailed instructions for accessing both corpora—including how to submit the required data access request form for TalkBank—are available on the Data Download page.
In addition, participants are welcome to incorporate external datasets for training; however, use of external data is subject to important exceptions and caveats (see External Data and Models.)
Participants are not allowed to share the competition data or use it for any purpose other than this competition. Participants cannot send the data to any third-party service or API, including but not limited to OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, or similar tools. For complete details, review the competition rules.
Audio
The data in this challenge are .flac audio clips of utterances from recordings of children as young as age 3 participating in a variety of controlled and semi-controlled speech tasks. These tasks include read or directed speech, prompted elicitation, and spontaneous conversational speech. The Word track and Phonetic track training data audio overlap substantially, though each track includes audio not found in the other. Training data, including audio and transcripts, can be used across tracks.
The audio clips have been scrubbed of any personally identifying information, and any adult speech that may have been present in the original recording.
The challenge dataset encompasses a broad range of U.S. regional dialects, accents, and socio-linguistic backgrounds, and includes both typically developing children and children presenting with speech sound disorders or other speech pathologies. Models are not expected to generalize to non-U.S. varieties of English.
The DrivenData corpus is made available on the Data Download page in smaller .zip files, each containing a random subset of audio clips. The TalkBank corpus is a single zipped archive with audio files for both the Word and Phonetic tracks.
Labels
The ground truth labels for the Phonetic Track are normalized phonetic transcriptions of individual utterances using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), with a one-to-one mapping between Unicode characters and phones. Each transcription captures the full sequence of speech sounds in the corresponding audio clip and may include substitutions, omissions, or non-standard productions that are typically ignored in word-level ASR.
All phonetic labels are restricted to the predefined IPA character set used during phonetic transcription. This set is provided in the scoring script in the runtime repository for local validation of predictions.
Environmental noises and non-lexical sounds produced by the child (e.g., siren-like play sounds or sneezes) are not labeled. While efforts have been made to apply consistent normalization, the data were collected from multiple sources with differing annotation protocols, and some variation in labeling should be expected.
Metadata and labels for this track are provided as a UTF-8 encoded JSONL manifest. Each line corresponds to a single utterance and references exactly one associated audio file. Phonetic transcriptions use Unicode IPA symbols.
For each of the two corpora, the file train_phon_transcripts.jsonl contains the following fields:
utterance_id(str) - unique identifier for each utterancechild_id(str) - unique, anonymized identifier for the speakersession_id(str) - unique identifier for the recording session; a singlechild_idmay be associated with multiplesession_idsaudio_path(str) - path to the corresponding.flacaudio file relative to the/audiodirectory, following the patternaudio/{utterance_id}.flacaudio_duration_sec(float) - duration of the audio clip in secondsage_bucket(str) - age range of the child at the time of recording ("3-4","5-7","8-11","12+", or"unknown")md5_hash(str) - MD5 checksum of the audio file, used for integrity verificationfilesize_bytes(int) - size of the audio file in bytesphonetic_text(str) - phonetic transcription of the utterance using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
Training and Test Data
The training and test splits are drawn from multiple data sources, and some sources appear exclusively in either the training or test split. A small portion of the dataset uses synthetically anonymized children’s voices. Participants are encouraged to develop models that generalize across speakers, recording conditions, and speech types.
Although all audio files have been converted to FLAC, the data vary in duration.
- Test data have been normalized to a 16 kHz sampling rate and a single channel (mono).
- Training data have not been normalized. The training data vary in sampling rate and number of channels (e.g., mono vs. stereo).
Submission Format
This is a code execution challenge! Rather than submitting your predicted labels, you will package your trained model and the prediction code and submit that for containerized execution.
Your code will generate a submission file that must be in JSONL format with one line per utterance. Each line must be a JSON object with the following fields:
utterance_id- the unique identifier matching those provided in the submission format in the runtime environmentphonetic_text- the predicted phonetic transcript for the utterance using International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
Be sure to only include characters defined in the scoring script's set of valid IPA characters.
Information about the submission package, predict function, code and other details about the runtime environment can be found on the Code submission format page.
Performance Metric
Text Preprocessing
Before scoring, predictions undergo Unicode normalization to remove certain characters (such as ligatures) and retain only the phonetic symbols defined in the scoring script's set of valid IPA characters.
We provide a script to perform this normalization and compute the metric in the runtime repository. Participants are encouraged to use this script to validate their submission format and reproduce the scoring behavior locally to get a sense of their performance prior to submission.
Metric Calculation
Performance is evaluated using IPA Character Error Rate (CER). The IPA Character Error Rate is equivalent to Phone Error Rate (PER) since the submissions are normalized to have a one-to-one character-to-phone mapping.
The metric computes the minimum number of substitutions (|$S$|), deletions (|$D$|), and insertions (|$I$|) required to transform the predicted character sequence into the reference sequence, divided by the total number of reference characters (|$N$|):
$$CER = \frac{S + D + I}{N}$$
Since this is an error metric, a lower value is better. Be sure to only include characters defined in the scoring script's set of valid IPA characters.
Good luck!
Good luck and enjoy this problem! If you have any questions you can always visit the user forum!
On Top of Pasketti: Children’s Speech Recognition Challenge - Phonetic Track: Rules and Terms of Data Use
DrivenData Competition Rules
GUIDELINES
These guidelines are intended to summarize a few main features of the competition rules. Full details are provided in the competition rules below.
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Documentation for winning solutions
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Questions?
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This Competition is a challenge of skill and the final results are determined by evaluating a combination of quantitative and qualitative factors, as more fully described on the Competition Website. For that portion of the Competition evaluated quantitatively, the results will be determined solely by leaderboard ranking on the private leaderboard based on an objective statistical evaluation metric published on the Competition Website prior to commencement of the Competition (subject to compliance with these Competition Rules). Participants' scores and ranks on the Competition Website at any given stage of the Competition will be based on the objective statistical evaluation metric described on the Competition Website, as determined by applying the predictions in the Submission to the ground truth of a validation dataset whose instances were a fixed set sampled from the Data. Scores displayed on the public leaderboard while the competition is running may or may not be the same as the final scores on the private leaderboard, depending on how samples from the Data are used for evaluation. For that portion of the Competition evaluated qualitatively, the results will be determined by a panel of judges, as more fully described on the Competition Website. As more fully described on the Competition Website, the Competition may have quantitative winners, qualitative winners, combined quantitative and qualitative winners, or all three.
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Data use and code sharing
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Furthermore, unless otherwise expressly stated on the Competition Website:
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- Participants may not add any manual annotations to the provided test data. Eligible solutions need to be able to run on test samples automatically using the test data as provided.
Competition Sponsor reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any Participant who Competition Sponsor discovers has undertaken or attempted to undertake the use of data other than the Data, or who uses the Data other than as permitted according to the Competition Website and in these Competition Rules, in the course of the Competition.
CODE SHARING. Participants are prohibited from privately sharing source or executable code developed in connection with or based upon the Data, and any such sharing is a breach of these Competition Rules and may result in disqualification. Participants are permitted to publicly share source or executable code developed in connection with or based upon the Data, or otherwise relevant to the Competition, provided that such sharing does not violate the intellectual property rights of any third party. By so sharing, the sharing Participant is thereby deemed to have licensed the shared code under the MIT License (an open source software license commonly described at http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT).
Participant warranties and obligations
By registering, you agree that (a) your Account is complete, correct and accurate and (b) your registration may be rejected or terminated and all Entries submitted by you and/or your Team may be disqualified if any of the information in your Account is (or Competition Sponsor of DrivenData has reasonable grounds to believe it is) incomplete, incorrect or inaccurate. You are solely responsible for your Account. All registration information is deemed collected in the United States.
Participation is subject to all applicable federal, state, provincial, territorial and local laws, rules and regulations. You agree to comply with all applicable laws and regulations at all times during your participation in the Competition. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. You are responsible for checking applicable laws and regulations in your jurisdiction before participating in the Competition to make sure that your participation is legal. You are responsible for all taxes and reporting related to any award that you may receive as part of the Competition. You are responsible for abiding by your employer's policies regarding participation in the Competition. Competition Sponsor and DrivenData disclaim any and all liability or responsibility for disputes arising between you and your employer related to this Competition Each Participant must comply with all applicable explicit or implicit terms and conditions or policies applicable for platforms, applications, or software used in connection with or on which their Solution operates. As such, each Participant must follow the spirit of such terms and conditions and policies; and any attempt to subvert or to use a work-around of such terms and conditions or policies may, in DrivenData’s sole discretion, lead to such Participant’s disqualification.
Each Participant is solely responsible for all equipment, including but not necessarily limited to a computer and internet connection necessary to access the Competition Website and to develop and upload any Submission, and any telephone, data, hosting or other service fees associated with such access, as well as all costs incurred by or behalf of the Entrant in participating in the Competition.
By entering a Submission, you represent and warrant that all information you enter on the Competition Website is true and complete to the best of your knowledge, that you have the right and authority to make the Submission (including any underlying code and model) on your own behalf or on behalf of the persons and entities that you specify within the Submission, and that your Submission:
- complies with all applicable federal, state, provincial, territorial, local and international laws, statutes, ordinances, rules and regulations;
- is your own original work, or is used by permission, in which case full and proper credit and identity is given and the third party contributions are clearly identified within your Submission;
- does not contain confidential information or trade secrets and is not the subject of a registered patent or pending patent application;
- does not violate or infringe upon the patent rights, industrial design rights, copyrights, trademarks, rights of privacy, publicity or other intellectual property or other rights of any person or entity;
- does not contain malicious code, such as viruses, timebombs, cancelbots, worms, Trojan horses or other potentially harmful programs or other material or information;
- does not and will not violate any applicable law, statute, ordinance, rule or regulation;
- does not trigger any reporting or royalty obligation to any third party; and
- was not previously published and has not won any other prize/award.
A breach of any of these warranties will result in the corresponding Submission being invalid.
Confidentiality
Confidential Information Defined. As used in this Section, "Confidential Information" means Competition Sponsor materials, and any information provided by DrivenData hereunder, whether of a technical, business, or other nature (including, without limitation, information relating to a party's technology, software, products, services, designs, methodologies, business plans, finances, marketing plans, Sponsors, prospects, or other affairs), that is received by Participant.
Exclusions. Participant's obligations under this Section as to the disclosing party's Confidential Information does not include any information that Participant can document: (a) was known to Participant prior to receiving the same from the disclosing party in connection with this Agreement; (b) is independently developed by Participant without use of or reference to the Confidential Information of the disclosing party; (c) is acquired by Participant from another source without restriction as to use or disclosure; or (d) is or becomes part of the public domain through no fault or action of Participant.
Nondisclosure. In consideration of the terms and conditions of this Agreement, and for other good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which is acknowledged, during and after the term of this Agreement Participant will: (a) use the disclosing party's Confidential Information solely for the purpose for which it is provided; (b) not disclose the disclosing party's Confidential Information to a third party unless the third party must access the Confidential Information to perform in accordance with this Agreement and the third party has executed a written agreement that contains terms that are substantially similar to the terms contained in this Section; and (c) maintain the secrecy of, and protect from unauthorized use and disclosure, the disclosing party's Confidential Information to the same extent (but using no less than a reasonable degree of care) that Participant protects its own Confidential Information of a similar nature. If Participant is required by law or by any governmental or semi-governmental agency or court to disclose the disclosing party's Confidential Information or the terms of this Agreement Participant must give prompt written notice of such requirement to the disclosing party before such disclosure and assist the disclosing party in attempting to obtain an order protecting the Confidential Information from public disclosure.
Return of Information. Upon request, Participant will destroy or deliver to the disclosing party all Confidential Information Participant may have in its possession or control.
Injunctive Relief. Participant acknowledges that any violation or threatened violation of this Section may cause irreparable injury to the other party, entitling the disclosing party to obtain injunctive relief in addition to all legal remedies.
Delivery and receipt of entries
DrivenData is not responsible for (a) late, lost, stolen, damaged, garbled, incomplete, incorrect or misdirected Entries or other communications, (b) errors, omissions, interruptions, deletions, defects, or delays in operations or transmission of information, in each case whether arising by way of technical or other failures or malfunctions of computer hardware, software, communications devices, or transmission lines, or (c) data corruption, theft, destruction, unauthorized access to or alteration of Submission materials, loss or otherwise. DrivenData is not responsible for electronic communications or emails which are undeliverable as a result of any form of active or passive filtering of any kind, or insufficient space in any email account to receive email messages. DrivenData disclaims any liability for damage to any computer system resulting from participation in, or accessing or downloading information in connection with, the Competition.
Reservation of rights
DrivenData, in its sole discretion, reserves the right to disqualify any person tampering with the entry process, the operation of the Web site, the competition process, or is otherwise in violation of the Competition Rules. DrivenData reserves the right at any time to disqualify a Submission from a Competition where, acting in good faith, it believes there are reasonable grounds to warrant disqualification. For example, DrivenData’s determination that the Submission does not provide the functionality described or required, or the Submission appears to be purposely designed to circumvent these Competition Rules or the spirit of the Competition would be grounds for disqualification. DrivenData reserves the right to cancel, terminate or modify the Competition if it is not capable of completion as planned for any reason, including infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention or technical failures of any sort. If DrivenData determines (at any time and in their sole discretion) that any Participant is engaging in behavior that DrivenData deems obnoxious, inappropriate, threatening, illegal or that is intended to annoy, abuse, or harass any other person or entity, DrivenData reserves the right to disqualify such Participant (and Participant’s Team, if applicable).
General release
By entering the Competition, you release and discharge the Competition Sponsor, DrivenData, and Competition Data providers (explicitly including Northwestern University) from any liability whatsoever in connection with the Competition or with the acceptance, possession, use or misuse of Data or any prize including, without limitation, legal claims, costs, injuries, losses or damages, demands or actions of any kind (including, without limitation: personal injuries; death; damage to, loss or destruction of property; rights of publicity or privacy; and defamation or portrayal in a false light). The Competition Sponsor and DrivenData will not be responsible for typographical, printing or other inadvertent errors in these Competition Rules or in other materials relating to the Competition. Additionally, you hereby agree to indemnify the Competition Sponsor, DrivenData, and Competition Data providers from any and all losses, damages, costs, expenses, rights, claims, demands and actions (including attorney's fees and expenses for litigation and settlement), which may be brought against any one or more of them by anyone claiming to have suffered loss or damage as a result of your participation in the Competition or for any breach of any representation or warranty herein. Northwestern University is an intended third-party beneficiary of the Competition Rules.
Limitations of liability
By participating in the Competition, each Participant agrees that: (1) any and all disputes, claims, and causes of action arising out of or in connection with the Competition, or any prize awarded, shall be resolved individually without resort to any form of class action; (2) any claims, judgments and awards shall be limited to actual out-of-pocket costs incurred, including costs associated with entering the Competition, but in no event attorney's fees; and (3) under no circumstances will a Participant be permitted to obtain any award for, and each Participant hereby waives all rights to claim, punitive, incidental or consequential damages and any and all rights to have damages multiplied or otherwise increased and any other damages, other than damages for actual out-of-pocket expenses.
DrivenData, Inc., Competition Sponsor, and the employees, officers, directors, shareholders, agents, representatives, affiliates, subsidiaries, and advertising, promotional and legal advisors thereof (collectively, the “Released Parties”) are not responsible and shall not be liable for: (i) late, lost, delayed, damaged, misdirected, incomplete, illegible, or unintelligible entries; (ii) telephone, electronic, hardware, or software program, network, Internet, or computer malfunctions, failures, or difficulties; (iii) errors in transmission; (iv) any condition caused by events beyond the control of the Released Parties that may cause the Competition to be disrupted or corrupted; (v) any injuries, losses, or damages of any kind caused by a prize or resulting from acceptance, possession, or use of a prize, or from participation in the Competition (however (but only if required by law in your jurisdiction), this release and hold harmless commitment does not apply to cases of bodily injury or loss of life to the extent that any death or personal injury is caused by the negligence of DrivenData, Competition Sponsor, or other third parties, where liability to the injured party cannot be excluded by law); or (vi) any printing or typographical errors in any materials associated with the Competition.
Disclaimer of Warranties
You understand that we cannot and do not guarantee or warrant that the Data or other files available for downloading from the internet or the Competition Website will be free of viruses or other destructive code. You are responsible for implementing sufficient procedures and checkpoints to satisfy your particular requirements for anti-virus protection and accuracy of data input and output, and for maintaining a means external to our site for any reconstruction of any lost data. RELEASED PARTIES WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE CAUSED BY A DISTRIBUTED DENIAL-OF-SERVICE ATTACK, VIRUSES OR OTHER TECHNOLOGICALLY HARMFUL MATERIAL THAT MAY INFECT YOUR COMPUTER EQUIPMENT, COMPUTER PROGRAMS, DATA OR OTHER PROPRIETARY MATERIAL DUE TO YOUR USE OF THE WEBSITE OR ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE WEBSITE OR TO YOUR DOWNLOADING OF ANY MATERIAL POSTED ON IT, OR ON ANY WEBSITE LINKED TO IT.
YOUR USE OF THE COMPETITION WEBSITE, ITS CONTENT AND ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE WEBSITE AND RECEIPT OF ANY PRIZES IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE WEBSITE, ITS CONTENT AND ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS, WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, BEYOND ANY NON-EXCLUDABLE GUARANTEES (DEFINED BELOW). NEITHER THE RELEASED PARTIES NOR ANY PERSON ASSOCIATED WITH RELEASED PARTIES MAKES ANY WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION WITH RESPECT TO THE COMPLETENESS, SECURITY, RELIABILITY, QUALITY, ACCURACY OR AVAILABILITY OF THE COMPETITION WEBSITE. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, NEITHER RELEASED PARTIES NOR ANYONE ASSOCIATED WITH THE RELEASED PARTIES REPRESENTS OR WARRANTS THAT THE COMPETITION WEBSITE, ITS CONTENT OR ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE WEBSITE WILL BE ACCURATE, RELIABLE, ERROR-FREE OR UNINTERRUPTED, THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED, THAT OUR SITE OR THE SERVER THAT MAKES IT AVAILABLE ARE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS OR THAT THE COMPETITION WEBSITE OR ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE WEBSITE WILL OTHERWISE MEET YOUR NEEDS OR EXPECTATIONS.
NOTHING IN THESE COMPETITION RULES LIMITS, EXCLUDES, OR MODIFIES OR PURPORTS TO LIMIT, EXCLUDE, OR MODIFY ANY STATUTORY CONSUMER GUARANTEE OR ANY IMPLIED CONDITION OR WARRANTY, THE EXCLUSION OF WHICH FROM THESE COMPETITION RULES WOULD CONTRAVENE ANY STATUTE OR CAUSE ANY PART OF THESE TERMS TO BE VOID (“NON-EXCLUDABLE GUARANTEES”). SUBJECT TO THE LIMITATIONS IN THE PRECEDING SENTENCE AND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY ANY MANDATORY PROVISIONS OF APPLICABLE LAW, THE RELEASED PARTIES HEREBY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, NON-INFRINGEMENT AND FITNESS FOR PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
THE FOREGOING DOES NOT AFFECT ANY WARRANTIES WHICH CANNOT BE EXCLUDED OR LIMITED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW.
Governing Law and Jurisdiction
DrivenData shall be the sole interpreter of these Competition Rules.
All matters relating to the Competition Rules or the Competition and any dispute or claim arising therefrom or related thereto (in each case, including non-contractual disputes or claims), shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the internal laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts without giving effect to any choice or conflict of law provision or rule (whether of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or any other jurisdiction).
Any legal suit, action or proceeding arising out of, or related to, the Competition or the Competition Website shall be instituted exclusively in the federal courts of the United States or the courts of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts although we retain the right to bring any suit, action or proceeding against you for breach of these Competition Rules in your country of residence or any other relevant country. You waive any and all objections to the exercise of jurisdiction over you by such courts and to venue in such courts.
The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of these Competition Rules shall not affect the validity or enforceability of any other provision. In the event that any provision is determined to be invalid or otherwise unenforceable or illegal, these Competition Rules shall otherwise remain in effect and be construed in accordance with their terms as if the invalid or illegal provision was not contained herein.