METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SELECTIVE DISTRIBUTED SPEECH RECOGNITION

An apparatus and method for selective distributed speech recognition includes a dialog manager (104) that is capable of receiving a grammar type indicator (170). The dialog manager (104) is capable of being coupled to an external speech recognition engine (108), which may be disposed on a communication network (142). The apparatus and method further includes an audio receiver (102) coupled to the dialog manager (104) wherein the audio receiver (104) receives a speech input (110) and provides an encoded audio input (112) to the dialog manager (104). The method and apparatus also includes an embedded speech recognition engine (106) coupled to the dialog manager (104), such that the dialog manager (104) selects to distribute the encoded audio input (112) to either the embedded speech recognition engine (106) or the external speech recognition engine (108) based on the corresponding grammar type indicator (170).