Music to the Ears: Singing with a Speech Impediment

Another entertaining season of American Idol has come, and it has reappeared in the spotlight in full force.  Sure, it might have a little something to do with the awkward, usually explosive tension between the two judges Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj (likely leaving middle-man Keith Urban in a state of shock after each audition, but this is besides the point…). In fact, two contestants have made this quite a unique season to date.  Cuban-American Lazaro Arbos and Micah Johnson from Georgia have wowed the judges with their sultry voices, earning the highly-desired yellow ticket to move onto the next auditions in Hollywood.  Besides the golden voices that are worthy of generous praise, these two contestants have one other thing in common: speech impediments.

Lazaro Arbos is one of the millions of people who deal with stuttering, one of the most common speech impediments, otherwise known as speech disorders.  Stuttering is the involuntary repetition and lengthening of particular sounds, words, syllables, or phrases while speaking.  This impediment can be the result of developmental problems (beginning in childhood) or acquired in adulthood (due to a neurological disruption, such as head injury, tumor, or drug use).  Stuttering in younger individuals can be caused by nervousness, anxiety, or stress from a variety of events. 

Micah Johnson, however, suffers from a speech impediment caused by an unfortunate accident while getting his tonsils removed.  He indicated that one his nerves was affected in the vocal cords. This could be a devastating event for anyone, but Micah seems to appreciate the fact that he is still able to speak, nonetheless sing effortlessly, with the help of a speech therapist.

Here is the kicker. Speaking at normal pace with clear diction for individuals with speech impediments is incredibly difficult, but when the mode of verbal communication changes into singing, all words blend harmoniously together and can be understood with relative ease. 

So what could be attributing to this seemingly miraculous change in the singing voice? Here are a few ideas from The Stuttering Foundation:

•  It is possible that we use our vocal cords, lips, and tongue differently when we talk.  This may cause the physiological effects of stuttering and sensations of a linguistic “brain freeze”.

• There is much less time pressure and communicative pressure to deliver a specific message when singing.  

• The brain functions differently when we sing and when we talk. Again, the communicative factors come into play – stress and nervousness can overlap the thinking and speaking process, causing us to think quicker than words can be spoken.
  
  
• “Word retrieval” or the searching for words in our lexicon when we speak might contribute to some types of stuttering. When singing, we usually know the words by heart and rely on rhythm.

Having a speech impediment can make life challenging enough, but to throw yourself into the public spotlight takes respectable amounts of courage and self-confidence to fulfill lifelong dreams.  Singing is a sure way to brighten moods and in the case of Lazaro and Micah, singing is the obvious key to overcoming the struggles of daily communication through speech.