Sounds Like?— a Lot of Work

Today was a special day for me; I officially began speech therapy. It has been two months exactly since my speaking voice has changed from my normal Midwest farmer’s daughter dialect to one that sounds clearly like that of a foreigner trying to speak English.

Though I had my initial analysis with the speech therapy department on May 20th, they had only the original neurologist’s diagnosis of “disarthria,” which is just an official word for “slurred speech”  often  caused by a neurological problem in mechanically producing the sounds. However, my speech is not really slurred as much as “accented”.

My therapist today said that we will focus on identifying which sounds I am getting wrong and then correcting those sounds. She told me that I seemed to be doing a fairly good job of “catching myself” producing the incorrect sounds. There are just so very many sound combinations that are not coming out properly in my everyday speech that it is a LOT of work.

One of the sounds that I know I have a great deal of trouble with is the “TH” sound.  The words “there or their”, “mother or father” are mispronounced as “Dar, mudder, and fadder.” That TH is a killer for me. When I try to slow down and really make my mouth form the sound it causes my tongue to tickle my lower teeth and lips together. It feels like when we used to make that kazoo sound by using a comb and a piece of paper OR when we took a very thick blade of grass held just-so in our cupped hands and blowing to produce that incredible buzzing sound like a kazoo.

Though I have spent the last two months working on putting the long A’s into words like table and baby. Now, the real work begins as I carry around a notebook and notate as many mispronounced words as I can. This phonetic journal should help me identify some of the biggest problems that I am having in accented speech. It is just that there are so very many accented words in my normal speech, that I get a bit discouraged as I wonder if  I’ll be able to work my way back to my regular voice.

I got excited when my speech therapist said that she had worked with a lot of people with foreign accents… I suddenly felt like this was something I was not so alone in. However, then she corrected my thinking. These foreign speakers were actually from that other country, not like me. Unlike the Japanese lady that my therapist was able to help with r’s and l’s; my dialect is not from any one language so we don’t have the typical pointers like if you are from Sweden then you have very strong UU’s or French has a very nasal and broad A. My accent is literally “all over the map”.

So. . . where to begin?  One word at a time. I remember two months ago when I first came out of the hospital I couldn’t say “yesterday,” without hitting hard brick walls between each syllable. Now, it is still somewhat slower that my old voice, but I have gotten that word to come out more naturally. One little victory with hopefully many more to come.

Not the Report I Was Hoping to Hear

I was very excited about the EEG test that I had a couple of weeks ago. The technician had wired me up to the machine to record brainwaves as I performed the requested tasks. However, the lady surprised me by having me sing “You are my Sunshine” followed immediately by speaking the words. I was excited to learn that she did this because of my demonstration before the testing began.

It was with great anticipation that I went to see Dr. John Scott, my neurologist for my follow up appointment on Wednesday. I could hardly wait to hear what the EEG scribblings would show. I bet that there would be irrefutable evidence that my speech area was located in a different part of the brain than that which I used to sing. And since I can since in my “regular” voice, I thought that meant that I would be able to fully recover my normal, unaccented voice.

However, my excitement turned to disappointment when I didn’t get such a report. “Your EEG is normal,” came the report. Although that is good news in regard to connectivity of brainwaves and such, it didn’t help shed light on what is actually going on with me.

When I put the doctor on the spot with, “Well, if I just came to you with these symptoms and I had never even mentioned Foreign Accent Syndrome, what would you do with me?”

Dr. Scott told me that there simply isn’t an easy way to figure out what is going on with me. He said that in this local hospital network there simply aren’t specialists who deal with speech and how one might suddenly be stricken with a foreign accent. The closest related doctors that he could think of deal more with dementia than speech. There are also doctors who handle speech problems as it relates to psychologically based maladies, but I don’t really fit into that category either.

The bottom line of our follow up appointment is that Dr. Scott was entertaining the idea that it might be Foreign Accent Syndrome, but we are unsure of where to go from here. What testing or studies should be done. Dr. Jack Ryalls, of University of Central Florida is an expert on Foreign Accent Syndrome. My neurologist asked me to have Dr. Ryalls email him with suggestions for tests and then he will consider those recommendations and schedule them accordingly if possible. For example a functional MRI has been known to show which areas of the brain are affected, but there may not be the proper imaging tools located around here.

It is looking more and more like I am going to be dependent on some sort of a School of Medicine to launch an investigation, or include me in a study of some kind, because there doesn’t appear to be anything around here like me. Truly, I am feeling very foreign now, not just in accent, but in the idea that people just don’t know what to do with me or this problem.

There are very many people who say that I have a beautiful sounding accent. They all are intrigued by the very idea that I have this affliction. It truly is bizarre, however what to do about it? That is the question. All in all, I didn’t get the report that I was hoping for.

That is why I continue to scour the internet for more information on what may explain this. I am amassing quite a lot of documentation, but not getting to the answers yet. There is so little known about such a rarity. Still, I press on. . . there are others who are looking for the same answers out there. Still there are others who don’t know who to turn to for help. I, at least, have a group of doctors who are legitimately trying to get to the source of the problem.s

How Do You Say It?

The weekend was full of activities, and a lot of it was spent with family and friends of family that I had not seen in years. All these relatives and friends were at two different big celebrations held over in both Michigan and Northern Indiana.

All but one set of relatives have never heard me speaking with the foreign accent that had suddenly came upon me on May 12th.
So imagine for a moment if you were me; how would you handle the attempted explanation of the inevitable questions “what happened to your voice?” “Why are you talking that way,” and from the less familiar relatives and friends “where are you from?”

There is no easy way to explain it. There is a rare disorder called Foreign Accent Syndrome and it causes me to speak with a foreign accent. I did manage to tell groups at a time while we sat together after eating. Although that helped cut down on the number of repeated explanations, I still became very tired of explaining something that is so hard to explain.

It all boils down to the fact that we don’t know exactly why it happened, or if I will get my regular voice back. However, in the meantime we are pressing on with investigations and tests to try to gain a better scientific understanding of how the brain works in relation to speech.

Still, it is fascinating and the listeners dropped their jaws when I sang a little bit for them in my regular voice. Then we had a good conversation about our bodies being fearfully and wonderfully made. What about attitude? We talked about how we don’t gain anything by worrying or fretting about something that we do not have any control over. Then I was able to talk about my faith in knowing that God remains in control of it all. That is how I truthfully am able to do as well emotionally as I have been.

I explained that I can have “joy” even in the midst of a trial. While I may not be “happy” about it, I can have times of laughter with others as we note the funny pronunciations of American English. Some mispronunciations make a normal saying sound even more funny. We can laugh together! I have been told by many people that it is the laughter that allows them to ask me more questions without feeling uncomfortable about it.

That brings me back to the conversation with them about what to say when I am asked so many times a day, “Where are you from?” I always answer, “where do you think? I seriously would like to know, because we are taking a poll.” Most people then apologize and express they are afraid to guess wrong. I tell them they cannot guess wrong, and that I will explain it after they guess. Then the people are more at ease and will play the game.

Here is how the poll is going this week:
1) English/Australian
2) Swedish
3) French
4) Some form of Slovick
5) And this week I have been getting repeated “South African” and even a specific “Rhodesia” and 6) one Portuguese.

Although there hasn’t been a clear winner as to which accent I am speaking, it is clear that it is a foreign one. The easiest way to describe it is the sound of a foreign born European coming to the United States and trying to speak English.