Thursday, October 26, 2006

Nursery Rhyme Cures Speechlessness

Scott Adams, the creator of the famous series of Dilbert cartoons, lost his voice 18 months ago from a condition called Spasmodic Dysphonia, in which that part of the brain which controls the muscles around the vocal cords malfunctions and either shuts down or spasms. No one has ever recovered from this condition before. Adams, however, persisted in experimenting with his remaining speech function for over 18 months of fruitless efforts to finally discover that he could speak normally when rhyming. With a little more concerted effort around the rhyming, he has now almost fully recovered. Read the amazing story here on his blog. It is a fantastic example of the wonders and complexities of the human brain, and a testament to the power of perseverance and open-minded discipline in experimentation and the scientific method.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Absolutely unbelievable and wonderful. It really gives hope for anything under teh sun. Phil