Article: Singing therapy helps stroke patients regain language

[Guest guest]

Even though this article is about stroke -keep in mind more money and research

there than on apraxia and other speech impairments. Same rule applies for

children too -look for creative " right brained " ways to stimulate speech -acting

too! Have your child pretend to be different people -use different voices when

speaking...super fun therapy!!

Singing therapy helps stroke patients regain language

By Landau, CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* About 200,000 U.S. strokes annually result in language disorder

* Scientists use basic connection of singing and language to help restore

speech

* That some with brain damage can sing but not speak has long been known

* Music experience also has positive impact on healthy individuals' verbal

abilities

San Diego, California (CNN) -- When mothers speak to children, it's often in a

singsong tone. That's no coincidence, scientists say, given that music and

language are so intricately linked in the brain.

Scientists are using this fundamental connection between song and speech to

treat patients who have lost their ability to communicate. There's evidence that

music can be used to help people with severe brain impairments learn how to

speak again, scientists said over the weekend at the annual meeting of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Doctors at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, are

treating stroke patients who have little or no spontaneous speech by associating

melodies with words and phrases.

" Music, and music-making, is really a very special form of a tool or an

intervention that can be used to treat neurological disorders, said Dr.

Gottfried Schlaug, associate professor of neurology at Beth Israel and Harvard

University. " There's rarely any other activity that could really activate or

engage this many regions of the brain that is experienced as being a joyous

activity. "

There are between 750,000 and 800,000 strokes per year in the United States, and

about 200,000 of them result in a kind of language disorder called aphasia, he

said. About one-third of those patients have aphasia so severe that they become

non-fluent, meaning about 60,000 to 70,000 patients per year could benefit from

the music therapy.

It is being scientifically explored only at Beth Israel, but there are speech

therapists throughout the United States who are using some kind of music

treatment. About 25 to 30 patients have been described in published research

papers, but there may be hundreds or thousands of others treated in

nonscientific settings, Schlaug said.

The left side of the brain plays a key role in speech and language ability. But

the right side of the brain has the capability to become enhanced and change its

structure to compensate for left-side deficits, researchers have found.

Schlaug's group's technique, Melodic Intonation Therapy, involves singing tones

with the patient and having the patient repeat words and phrases to the sound of

those tones. Melody and rhythm are incorporated in getting the patients, who

would otherwise not be able to speak, to sing.

The observation that some patients with brain damage can sing but not speak has

been around for at least a century, Schlaug said. However, it's only recently

that the phenomenon, and how it works in the brain, has been scientifically

studied.

Anyone can be trained to do this therapy, including nonprofessional caregivers

and family members, he said. It is not widespread, perhaps because of people's

natural inhibition about singing with patients, he said.

" We're talking about people 50 to 90 years of age, and to change the brain at

that age requires something that has to be done very intensely, " he said.

Each session is 1½ hours, and the program lasts 14 to 16 weeks. For most of

these kinds of therapies, in order to assess the efficacy, treatment needs to

take place after the natural recovery phase, which can be six to 12 months, he

said.

One example is a patient called J.M., 57 years old, who had a large lesion on

the left side of his brain. He had four years of speech therapy before the

intervention but could mainly utter only senseless sounds. After 75 sessions of

the singing technique, he could fluently say his address when asked. Another

patient was taught to say, " I am thirsty. "

" If they can express their really basic needs, that is very important to someone

who is otherwise nonverbal, " Schlaug said.

During these 75 sessions, patients are taught several hundred words and phrases,

and they will usually not lose the ability to say these things after the therapy

stops. At least two-thirds of the patients are able to transfer the skills to

words and phrases on which they have not been trained, he said.

One or two of Schlaug's patients have even given a small speech in public, he

said.

Schlaug's group and others are also looking at music therapies for children with

autism.

Neuroimaging of healthy brains has shown that the areas and signals of the brain

used to process instrumental music are activated when processing spoken

language, said Aniruddh Patel, senior fellow at the Neuroscience Institute.

" Your knowledge of nouns of verbs is different from your knowledge of tones and

chords and harmony, " he said. Yet " some of the parts of the brain we use to put

the pieces together as we understand language and music seem to overlap, and

that has implications for studying language disorders. "

Music experience also has a positive impact on healthy individuals' verbal

abilities, studies show. Nina Kraus, director of the Northwestern University's

Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, and colleagues found that, in noisy

environments, musicians could hear speech better than non-musicians.

There is even speculation that music came before talk: Darwin wrote that

singing evolved before speech in humans, he said. Like birds, singing may have

functioned in mating calls, the theory goes. Some scientists agree; others think

music is just an invention, he said.

Visit The Music and Neuroimaging Laboratory to learn more.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/22/aaas.music.language/?hpt=Mid

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