Dilbert's voice

Avatar for littleroses
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Dilbert's voice
2
Thu, 11-16-2006 - 7:31pm

This is the guy who does Dilbert cartoons. Very interesting blog anyway, if what he says is true. Renee, this may be too little to late, but this could be something of interest in regard to music therapy. It makes me rethink the value of how I approach speech with my dd. Singing, rhyming, it's not just for fun!

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/

"Good News Day
As regular readers of my blog know, I lost my voice about 18 months
ago. Permanently. It's something exotic called Spasmodic Dysphonia.
Essentially a part of the brain that controls speech just shuts down
in some people, usually after you strain your voice during a bout
with allergies (in my case) or some other sort of normal laryngitis.
It happens to people in my age bracket.

I asked my doctor – a specialist for this condition – how many people
have ever gotten better. Answer: zero. While there's no cure, painful
Botox injections through the front of the neck and into the vocal
cords can stop the spasms for a few months. That weakens the muscles
that otherwise spasm, but your voice is breathy and weak.

The weirdest part of this phenomenon is that speech is processed in
different parts of the brain depending on the context. So people with
this problem can often sing but they can't talk. In my case I could
do my normal professional speaking to large crowds but I could barely
whisper and grunt off stage. And most people with this condition
report they have the most trouble talking on the telephone or when
there is background noise. I can speak normally alone, but not around
others. That makes it sound like a social anxiety problem, but it's
really just a different context, because I could easily sing to those
same people.

I stopped getting the Botox shots because although they allowed me to
talk for a few weeks, my voice was too weak for public speaking. So
at least until the fall speaking season ended, I chose to maximize my
onstage voice at the expense of being able to speak in person.

My family and friends have been great. They read my lips as best they
can. They lean in to hear the whispers. They guess. They put up with
my six tries to say one word. And my personality is completely
altered. My normal wittiness becomes slow and deliberate. And often,
when it takes effort to speak a word intelligibly, the wrong word
comes out because too much of my focus is on the effort of talking
instead of the thinking of what to say. So a lot of the things that
came out of my mouth frankly made no sense.

To state the obvious, much of life's pleasure is diminished when you
can't speak. It has been tough.

But have I mentioned I'm an optimist?

Just because no one has ever gotten better from Spasmodic Dysphonia
before doesn't mean I can't be the first. So every day for months and
months I tried new tricks to regain my voice. I visualized speaking
correctly and repeatedly told myself I could (affirmations). I used
self hypnosis. I used voice therapy exercises. I spoke in higher
pitches, or changing pitches. I observed when my voice worked best
and when it was worst and looked for patterns. I tried speaking in
foreign accents. I tried "singing" some words that were especially
hard.

My theory was that the part of my brain responsible for normal speech
was still intact, but for some reason had become disconnected from
the neural pathways to my vocal cords. (That's consistent with any
expert's best guess of what's happening with Spasmodic Dysphonia.
It's somewhat mysterious.) And so I reasoned that there was some way
to remap that connection. All I needed to do was find the type of
speaking or context most similar – but still different enough – from
normal speech that still worked. Once I could speak in that slightly
different context, I would continue to close the gap between the
different-context speech and normal speech until my neural pathways
remapped. Well, that was my theory. But I'm no brain surgeon.

The day before yesterday, while helping on a homework assignment, I
noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I
hadn't considered. A poem isn't singing and it isn't regular talking.
But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal
speech that my brain handled it fine.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.

I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was
effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed
repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost
flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech.
Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe it's
just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have.
Then something happened.

My brain remapped.

My speech returned.

Not 100%, but close, like a car starting up on a cold winter night.
And so I talked that night. A lot. And all the next day. A few times
I felt my voice slipping away, so I repeated the nursery rhyme and
tuned it back in. By the following night my voice was almost
completely normal.

When I say my brain remapped, that's the best description I have.
During the worst of my voice problems, I would know in advance that I
couldn't get a word out. It was if I could feel the lack of
connection between my brain and my vocal cords. But suddenly,
yesterday, I felt the connection again. It wasn't just being able to
speak, it was KNOWING how. The knowing returned.

I still don't know if this is permanent. But I do know that for one
day I got to speak normally. And this is one of the happiest days of
my life."

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2005
Thu, 11-16-2006 - 7:58pm

What an amazing story! I wonder how the different parts of the brain controlling speech affects people with ASD.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 11-17-2006 - 7:49am
Gosh....you always post the most interesting articles.....thanks!
Christie