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From: Bruce Poburka
Date: 10/15/02
Time: 4:05:05 PM
Remote Name: 134.29.11.28
Thank you for your questions...they provoke plenty of thought. I agree with your observation that the area of motor speech also shares "common ground" with stuttering therapy. Clearly, people with selected subtypes of dysarthria benefit from things like coordination of the respiratory and voice/speech subsystems, rate control, pacing, relaxation, etc. You asked what that tells us about speech therapy in general. My way of looking at it is that normal, efficient speech is produced with a coordinated, multifaceted system that relies on a fairly delicate balance of muscle forces, aerodynamic forces, and movement/timing patterns. This balance is disrupted by a variety of disorders...stuttering, dysarthria, voice problems, organic problems, functional problems...take you pick. And, we find that because of the speech system's integrated nature, what is useful for one disorder type is often applicable for another.
Regarding your question of whether there is any empirical evidence of speech affecting language...I have to say that I have come across more anecdotal evidence than empirical, but I would think there are studies that shed light on this issue. As for the anecdotal, I recall a woman with spasmodic dsyphonia who was treated with Botox. After she was rid of the spasms, and her speech was free to flow again...she remarked about how much better her language flowed too.. she enjoyed improved clarity of thought and freedom to convey her entire thought again. This seems logical to me, since in oral communication, we rely on the speech system to delivery the thought about as quickly as we are formulating it. A "bottle neck" at the speech production level would seem to require a halt in the linguistic formulation/encoding process. These are some of my thoughts...not really well supported with any data though.