4. The method of claim 3 wherein the defined length threshold is determined by a process comprising one of experimental determination, or theoretical calculation.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein the segmenting step further comprises: extracting statistical characteristics of the silence regions using an endpoint detection process; computing a zero-crossing rate threshold for the silence regions computing an energy threshold for the speech segments; determining if the length of a speech segment is less than a defined length threshold; and saving a speech segment as a reference pattern if its length is less than the defined length threshold, or dividing the speech segment into two or more sub-segments if its length is greater than the defined length threshold.