Stuttering is a speaker’s way of overcoming a timing deficit in the muscles that control speech vocalization. It’s enough to make the natural delivery of speech somewhat less than automatic. Like trying to ski and think about it at the same time, deliberation interferes with the fluid motion required to speak fluently. Stutterers try to compensate for this by rushing the process and speaking faster. They quickly exceed the capacity of the speech delivery system, which makes them either freeze-up or produce the same sound repeatedly. This happens when speech signals from the brain arrive at the system too quickly. Congestion occurs and access is momentarily denied. However, the system was already triggered to proceed ..so it starts uttering the last sound available, if any.
Most speech therapists use some form of ‘auditory feedback’ to impart a sense of timing to the delivery of speech. This involves a device with a pair of headphones that delays the feedback of speech and creates like an echo. It’s intended to help stutterers overcome the urge to speak too quickly and focus on smooth and continuous phrasing. The echo persists until the speaker begins to slow down and ‘close the gap’. As they slow down, the delay is shortened until their speaking voice and the echo are heard as one sound. Over several sessions, this technique helps the person master a pace that approaches the natural rhythm of speech.
In the movie ‘The King’s Speech’, the therapist first used a pair of headphones to completely block feedback by playing symphonic music instead. It wasn’t intended to treat the problem but to show the King that fluent speech was possible. Although the King dismissed it as a parlor trick ..it worked because it denied him access to what he was saying so he couldn’t speak and think about it at the same time. He only knew it worked later on in the story when he listened to the recording that his therapist had made during the session. His speech was near perfect and it’s what prompted him to continue therapy.
4 comments:
Interesting... I know at least one schizophrenic who says they use earbuds, for music, because when the music is playing, they don't hear the voices... looks like it blocks lots of things... but this is all very itneresting...
I know when we treat soldiers with video games ..it blocks consolidation of traumatic memories and keeps them from recurring. Music therapy helps dyslexics recover the timing they lost somewhere along the way. If schizophrenics can replace the voices in their head with music ..that’s great. Oliver Sachs writes about cases like these. Great read.
Thanks for turning me onto him. I checked him out. I didn't realize he was the guy who wrote Awakenings... a movie that just blew me away. I checked out some stuff online, he's pretty incredible, and the stuff is amazing, that he shares. Very interesting stuff regarding hallucinations. Again, thanks. I may have to check out some of his books, in time.
‘Awakenings’ was autobiographical .. Robin Williams was playing him in the 60’s. Great movie. ‘The man who mistook his wife for a hat’ is a funny title but a good read.
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