Matt Klein approximately 200 words
INTD 105-19: Science Writing
“The Therapeutic Effects of Singing in Neurological Disorders”
By Matt Klein
Since speaking and singing share many similarities, researchers have begun to test the effectiveness of singing as a treatment for neurological conditions. In “The Therapeutic Effects of Singing in Neurological Disorders,” Harvard students summarize the ways singing is being used to treat stuttering, Parkinson’s disease, aphasia, and autism. In the various studies, they describe, it was found that singing can increase cardio-physiological health and improve connections between the sensory, motor, and multimodal parts of the brain. Since singing also isolates the phonemes in words, those struggling with fluency have more control time to correct their speech. Overall, treatments involving singing increased fluency in all the disorders examined. This success illustrates how arts, like singing, can bring great contributions to fields science.
Despite the large amount of success described in this article, I’m curious as to how long-term the effects are. As a stutterer, I know that singing does help with fluency while singing, but I don’t notice any permanent changes. I’d also like to know what studies have found about the effectiveness of instrumental music, as I have been playing the cello for ten years.