Singing as a successful but specialized speech therapy technique

[Guest guest]

Hello,

We might find this interesting and relevant to what we are trying to

achieve? I'd vouch for that. A good song can be every bit as

rewarding as prose/talk. Our son could sing before forming prose,

definitely. He still can't use prose (talk) very well, but we're not

singing much either, anymore. Hmmmmm. Our mistake perhaps, " we're "

not much interested in singing, ourselves? ...

From being " able " to make the sounds we'd only have left the job of

giving meaning to them, thereof, of more meaningful song writing,

perhaps? .. . So much with the exasperating mechanics of speech

therapy, this promises, for some? Anything giving that part of the

job an interesting twist is definitely worth checking out, is my

sense of it.. .

Here's for that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/health/22stro.html?

nl=8hlth & adxnnl=1 & emc=hltha1 & adxnnlx=1209012534-vR19+DZAcgvABtS8iFZ/+A

From The New York Times

April 22, 2008

At 60, He Learned to Sing So He Could Learn to Talk

By KAREN BARROW

Few people over the age of 10 would list " Happy Birthday " among their

favorite songs. But Harvey Alter, now 62, has a special fondness for

it. It helped teach him how to talk.

One morning in June 2003, Mr. Alter, then a self-employed

criminologist, was putting a leash on his dog, Sam, in preparation

for a walk around Greenwich Village, where he has lived for 30 years.

Suddenly he felt dizzy and disoriented.

" My thoughts were intertwined, not making sense, " he said in a recent

interview. " I knew I was having a stroke. "

At St. 's Hospital, doctors diagnosed an ischemic stroke,

caused by a blockage in blood flow to part of the left half of his

brain. As a result, the right side of his body was temporarily

paralyzed, the right side of his face drooped, and he had trouble

coming up with the right words and stringing them into sentences — a

condition called aphasia.

Within hours of his stroke, Mr. Alter met with Loni Burke, a speech

therapist who now works at Lenox Hill Hospital. At first he was

completely nonverbal; within a few days he could say small words.

" Mostly, he said, `No,' " Ms. Burke recalled, " because he was

frustrated that he couldn't speak. "

After three weeks in the hospital and two years of painstaking

therapy, Mr. Alter's paralysis had mostly disappeared and his smile

was back to normal. But while he could communicate through small

words and the help of a chalkboard, complex verbal communication

remained elusive.

Using standard speech therapy techniques like reviewing lists of

numbers and the days of the week, Ms. Burke helped her patient piece

together short phrases. But they came slowly and sounded robotic.

Then one day, she asked him to sing.

" How can I ever sing? I can't talk, " Mr. Alter recalled thinking. But

as soon as Ms. Burke began to sing " Happy Birthday, " he chimed in.

" It sounded good, " he said. " Almost like I didn't have anything

wrong. "

The technique, called melodic intonation therapy, was developed in

1973 by Dr. Albert and colleagues at the Boston Veterans

Affairs Hospital. The aim was to help patients with damage to Broca's

area — the speaking center of the brain, located in its left

hemisphere.

These patients still had relatively healthy right hemispheres. And

while the left hemisphere is largely responsible for speaking, the

right hemisphere is used in understanding language, as well as

processing melodies and rhythms.

" You ask yourself, `What specifically engages the right

hemisphere?' " said Dr. Gottfried Schlaug, a neurologist at Beth

Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who studies music's effect

on the brain.

Melodic intonation therapy seems to engage the right hemisphere by

asking patients to tap out rhythms and repeat simple melodies.

Therapists first work with patients to create sing-song sentences

that can be set to familiar tunes, then work on removing the melody

to leave behind a more normal speaking pattern.

But relatively little research has been done to understand how this

type of therapy affects the brain of a stroke patient.

In a study completed in 2006, Dr. Schlaug and colleagues at Harvard

tracked the progress of eight patients with Broca's aphasia as they

underwent 75 sessions of melodic intonation therapy. M.R.I. scans

taken when the patients were speaking simple words and phrases showed

that activity in the right hemisphere had changed significantly over

the course of treatment.

" The combination of melodic intonation and hand-tapping activates a

system of the right side of the brain that is always there, but is

not typically used for speech, " Dr. Schlaug said.

He recommends melodic intonation therapy for patients who have no

meaningful form of speech, but can understand language and have the

patience for therapy sessions.

Before music came back into his life, Mr. Alter had difficulty

thinking of the words he wanted to use and forming them. For him, it

seems, melodic intonation therapy was the key to retraining his brain

to speak with tone and rhythm.

" After a stroke, the brain is learning to adapt, " said Dr. Albert

Favate, stroke director at St. 's Hospital in New York. " For

someone with Broca's aphasia, melodic intonation therapy can allow

them to get back their speaking patterns, which may improve speech

spontaneity. "

Mr. Alter still speaks somewhat haltingly, with a noticeable lilt,

but he no longer struggles so mightily to find the right word, and he

will happily serenade anyone with conversation about his condition.

While he attributes most of his success to melodic intonation

therapy, Ms. Burke says it was only one tool she used among a host of

others.

Still, she agrees that the therapy was crucial. " It may have caused

an initial reaction of, `Wow, maybe I can speak,' " she said.

As he has recovered, Mr. Alter has devoted his life to increasing

awareness about aphasia. He created the International Aphasia

Movement two years ago and spends much of his time leading support

groups for stroke survivors and their families and touring the world

to speak for those who can't speak for themselves.

And he is always happy to sing " Happy Birthday " with anyone who cares

to join in. " But I don't mind Christmastime either, " he

said. " Because I know all of the carols. "