My Kid is a Damn Nutter

[Clodfobble]

Coincidental--he's only had one lesson, last Wednesday, and the stutter improvements started a few weeks before that. He does still stutter all the time, it's just that now when we give him a reminder to "chunk" the sentence, he can actually stop and do that, whereas before he would try and still get stuck by the second or third word.

There's been some really interesting work on teaching brain injured people to speak again using song lyrics instead of sentences. They can't say "I want soup for lunch" but they can sing it. The brain is so weird.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

They can't say "I want soup for lunch" but they can sing it. The brain is so weird.

There have been some utterly amazing things accomplished for TBI's with music as well. Yes, some with stuttering too. Many with Aphasia have been helped by music therapy also.
Music is how we knew Daniel started talking after his surgery. The radio was playing a song he knew and he started singing it. Before that it was only a word or two here or there.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

snip--

There's been some really interesting work on teaching brain injured people to speak again using song lyrics instead of sentences. They can't say "I want soup for lunch" but they can sing it. The brain is so weird.

Another vote for "The brain is so weird." here. My Mom had a stroke years ago, a serious stroke and has been paralyzed on her right side since. Also, she has aphasia, rendering her vocabulary to "gunna gunna" and every emotional tone and inflection possible for that word. But no actual english words.

Surprisingly, she can hum, "sing" (aaahhh, aah, aaaaahhhhh) songs, no lyrics, but she can definitely carry a tune. The weirdness of her brain has been revealed by the removal of the part that granted her speech.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

The brain is so weird.

ain't that the truth

[Griff]

word

[xoxoxoBruce]

Mine isn't weird... it told me so, didn't you HAL.

[Clodfobble]

OMG.

YOU GUYS.


I wrote a memoir. Finished it last October, been querying agents ever since. The way the publishing industry works, you have to send a query letter first, which is equivalent to an elevator pitch, and only then will they decide if they're interested enough to ask for pages of the actual manuscript to read. After a total of 20 rejections and 18 non-responses, plus another 10 that are still within the "maybe we haven't officially ignored you yet but we're not telling" timeframe... someone finally asked for the manuscript! And not just anyone, but a big name at a major firm. Still, this was only one tiny step forward, since agents may actually only select as few as 1 out of 20 manuscripts they request.

Then yesterday morning, less than 12 hours after my super depressing night on the comedy stage, she emailed back to say she loved the book and wanted to represent it. Papers signed today. With any luck, a publisher will agree it's awesome, and you'll be able to find the saga of this thread in a real freaking bookstore in like... another 18 months, minimum.

For serious, I'm an author, y'all. (Almost.) Hell of a way to take the sting out of Tuesday night.

[DanaC]

Wow. Clod! That's so frikkin awsome.

[glatt]

Will you sign my copy?

[Undertoad]

Dang! Way to go!

[BigV]

WTG!!!

I want my copy signed too! The rest of you punks can get in line, behind me.

[fargon]

I want a signed copy also. When your on your book tour.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Excellent, I'm sure it's a good read.

Put the picture on the couch from college on the dust jacket. You'll sell a million.

[Clodfobble]

Ha! "As you can see from this photo, the psychological problems go back at least one generation..."

Thanks you guys. If I do get to do some kind of signing tour someday, you better believe I will be calling out dwellars in every city I get to go to.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Tour? I suppose it would be impossible to put more of a strain on your marriage at this point.