Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

A Look At How Vocal Coaching Techniques For Singers Could Be Used To Increase The Effectiveness Of Melodic Intonation Therapy On Stroke Patients, Eric Dalbey

2021 SLP Posters

Although people who suffer strokes can lose the ability to speak, their ability to sing may be retained. The areas of the brain associated with speaking and singing use an area on the left side of the brain; however, singing also uses frontal parts of the right side of the brain which are unaffected by a left hemisphere stroke affecting speech. Melodic Intonation Therapy is used to exploit this pathway.

The overlap between speech and singing can be most easily observed through the shared characteristics of melody (prosody) and rhythm (rate). MIT will use some common words and the clinician …