Top 14 How To Fix Monotone Voice Best 131 Answer

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Hypokinetic dysarthria is characterized by harsh voice quality, monotone, reduced volume and breathiness. Ataxic dysarthria is characterized by harsh voice quality, reduced speech rate, and poor volume and pitch control. Developmental verbal dyspraxia is characterized by monotone and poor volume control.A study has found that men with a steady tone of voice had a significantly higher number of sexual partners. Men with monotone voices are more attractive to women, a study has suggested. Monotonous voices are associated with strength, power and confidence, researchers said.

How to Fix a Monotone Voice

Check whether you really have a monotone voice. …
Think about when you are monotone. …
Learn to become comfortable expressing emotions. …
Practice allowing your voice to be emotional. …
Understand the importance of inflection. …
Use your body language to improve your voice. …
Practice your breathing.

And in Kayla Schwarz’s blog Six Steps to Prevent a Monotone she suggests that the following will help:

Breathe.
Stand Up Straight.
Use your voice as a highlighter.
Pause.
Tell a story.
Have a conversation.

Six Tips to Prevent a Monotone

Breathe. It’s impossible to speak with power or presence if there is no breath supporting your voice. …
Stand up straight (corollary to “Breathe”) Yes, posture impacts your voice. …
Use your voice as a highlighter. …
Pause. …
Tell a story. …
Have a conversation.

Contents

How do you stop a monotone voice?

And in Kayla Schwarz’s blog Six Steps to Prevent a Monotone she suggests that the following will help:

Breathe.
Stand Up Straight.
Use your voice as a highlighter.
Pause.
Tell a story.
Have a conversation.

Is a monotone voice a disorder?

How can I improve my monotone speaking?

Six Tips to Prevent a Monotone

Breathe. It’s impossible to speak with power or presence if there is no breath supporting your voice. …
Stand up straight (corollary to “Breathe”) Yes, posture impacts your voice. …
Use your voice as a highlighter. …
Pause. …
Tell a story. …
Have a conversation.

Is monotone voice unattractive?

A study has found that men with a steady tone of voice had a significantly higher number of sexual partners. Men with monotone voices are more attractive to women, a study has suggested. Monotonous voices are associated with strength, power and confidence, researchers said.

Why do I speak so monotone?

Analysts, as Thinking personalities, are cerebral types who tend to filter out their emotions as they consider the world around them, and that emotional distance can sometimes come through in the way they speak, making them sound more monotone during conversations.

Is a monotone voice good?

People who speak in a monotone voice or with inappropriate expression in their voices are perceived as untrustworthy, boring, or even shifty. As a business, sales or professional person, you can see why you’d want to fix this sloppy speech problem right away!

Are psychopaths monotone?

They don’t emphasize emotional words as other people do. Their tone remains fairly neutral throughout the conversation. Although their affect is typically flat and their voice monotone, they will adjust the pitch to emphasize or convince someone else that they are being “genuine.”

Do people with ADHD have a monotone voice?

Many ADHD kids hear their friends as though they’re a computer-generated voice behind a blank screen. They don’t see posture and facial expression, and they hear something like a monotone voice with no inflection. You can’t infer the mood of a person from that.

What does a monotone voice sound like?

What is a monotone voice? A monotone voice is one which doesn’t vary much in pitch; the range of intonation is much flatter. Andy Murray is an extreme example of this – he’s the most monotone man in our database.

How can I make my voice more interesting?

How to make your voice sound more attractive

Speak from the diaphragm. …
Find your maximum resonance point. …
Don’t punch your words. …
Clear your throat. …
Do not allow inflection at the end of your sentences. …
Control your volume. …
Remember to pause. …
Slow down your tempo.

How can I improve my tonality?

11 tips to improve your vocal tone

Warm-up. Whenever you have to start singing, warm-up your throat a little bit with some vocal exercises. …
Find your range. Everyone has a vocal range. …
Compare notes. …
Experiment with the vocal range. …
Sing your favourite tunes. …
Follow the best. …
Breathing exercise. …
Use gestures.

What are the ways on how you can avoid sounding monotonous?

Tips on making your speech or presentation sound less boring and monotone

Loosen up your Articulators. Your tongue, lips and jaw are all part of the articulators, the physical structure that produces speech. …
Vary Your Rate. Some people speak so fast that it tires you out. …
Speak Up. …
Record & Listen to your Speech.

How can I improve my tonality?

11 tips to improve your vocal tone

Warm-up. Whenever you have to start singing, warm-up your throat a little bit with some vocal exercises. …
Find your range. Everyone has a vocal range. …
Compare notes. …
Experiment with the vocal range. …
Sing your favourite tunes. …
Follow the best. …
Breathing exercise. …
Use gestures.

How to Fix a Monotone Voice | Practice VOCAL VARIETY

How to Fix a Monotone Voice | SocialSelf

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How To Stop Mumbling And Start Speaking More Clearly

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“Others will be bored with what I have to say”

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How to Fix a Monotone Voice | SocialSelf

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Why Do I Speak In A Monotone Voice

How can I improve the expressivity of my monotone voice

Ashley’s Exercises For How To Correct A Monotone Voice

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Contents

Symptoms and signs[edit]

Causes[edit]

Diagnosis[edit]

In the brain[edit]

Psychiatric conditions[edit]

Treatments[edit]

Future research[edit]

History[edit]

How to Fix a Monotone Voice

Making conversation and small talk can be difficult enough, without having to worry about whether we sound interesting. Even if you’re engaged and enjoying a conversation, talking in a monotone can make you come across as bored, disinterested, sarcastic, and aloof.

Some aspects of your voice are biologically determined. Whether you have a deep voice or a high one is based on the length and thickness of your vocal cords.

Other aspects of your voice come down to confidence. For example, confidence can affect how animated you are when you talk, the tone you talk with, and your inflection (If you go down or up at the end of your sentences).

The good news is that you can learn to improve these aspects, giving you an expressive and animated voice.

In this article, I want to give you some ideas for giving more animation to your voice. Some of these will be vocal techniques. Others will help change how you feel about expressing yourself.

What causes a monotone voice?

A monotone voice can be caused by shyness, not feeling comfortable expressing emotions, or a lack of confidence in your ability to vary your voice effectively. We can also come across as monotone if we are not putting enough effort or attention into our speech patterns.

1. Check whether you really have a monotone voice

If you are reading this article, you probably believe that you have a monotone voice. Before you start to work on improving this, it’s worth making sure that you’re right. Your voice will always sound different to you than it will to others.

Consider asking a trusted friend to tell you how your voice sounds. You could say, “I’m thinking of trying to change my voice because I’m not completely happy with it. I’d really appreciate your opinion on how I come across when I speak.”

This gives them the opportunity to provide honest feedback but doesn’t prompt them or encourage them to reassure you.

If you don’t want to ask someone else for feedback, you can video yourself speaking. This allows you to make your own decision as to whether you sound monotone. However, remember that you might sound more stilted than usual if you know that you are being recorded.

2. Think about when you are monotone

It may be that you have a monotone voice all of the time. Alternatively, you might find that you sound monotone with strangers or in stressful situations such as interviews but are actually very animated during conversations with your close family.

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You might even find that you have the opposite pattern, being animated with strangers but monotone with people you know and care about. All these variations are normal. They just need slightly different approaches to make it easier for you to improve your monotone voice.

If you are monotone in all situations, you will probably benefit from focusing on learning techniques that will help you develop a more animated voice.

If you only have a monotone voice some of the time, you are probably very aware of it when it happens, and this can make you feel pretty self-conscious. In this case, it’s usually because you feel uncomfortable expressing your thoughts or emotions around particular people.

If you find yourself being monotone around new people or in stressful situations, it may be helpful to work on your underlying confidence levels in those situations.

3. Learn to become comfortable expressing emotions

Many of us struggle to have an animated voice because it feels like we are going to come across as overly emotional. If you feel uncomfortable with your emotions, it can feel safer to keep your voice carefully neutral.

If you are typically fairly reserved, you might feel that allowing your voice to carry your emotions comes across as extreme. This is partly because of the spotlight effect,[1] where we think that other people pay far more attention to us than they actually do. It can also be because expressing your emotions feels risky.

One way to start becoming accustomed to expressing your emotions is to allow your words to communicate your emotions. Even if you are struggling to allow your emotions into your voice, try to get used to telling people how you are feeling.

For example, here are some phrases you could use:

“Yeah, I’m pretty frustrated about it, actually.”

“I know. I’m super excited about it too.”

“I’m actually a little embarrassed about that.”

The aim is to become used to telling people how you feel. That way, you will hopefully feel less like you need to hide any emotions that could come through your voice. You don’t have to only express big or personal emotions. Practice dropping an “I love that too” or “That made me really happy” into casual conversations when talking about things you’ve enjoyed.

4. Practice allowing your voice to be emotional

Whilst you are learning to feel safe enough to express your emotions during conversations, you can also work on practicing how to communicate those emotions. For most people who are monotone, this can feel difficult or uncomfortable.

Try experimenting at home to see just how extreme a range of emotions your voice can carry. It can be helpful to use a single phrase that you repeat with different strong emotions. An example might be to say “I told you they would come” as if you were excited, worried, proud, angry or relaxed. If you prefer, you can try copying emotional scenes from your favorite films.

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Try to include a wide range of different emotions so that you don’t end up with a very limited emotional range.

I suggest practicing showing strong emotions in your voice rather than trying to keep them more casual. When you come to have a conversation, your challenge will be to avoid falling back into your normal habit of remaining quiet and moderated in your voice. Between these two competing extremes, you will probably find that your voice actually sounds about right.

Don’t worry if you find that some emotions are easier to show than others. Film stars might have lots of angry scenes, but many people really struggle to show their anger.[2] Showing happiness is usually a little easier, as we are often less worried about how other people will react to that. Try to keep working on the full range of emotions, but be kind to yourself when you find one difficult.

5. Understand the importance of inflection

Inflection is the way in which we vary the pitch and emphasis of our speech. It’s important because it carries a lot of information about your intentions.

Most of us have written something in an email or text which was meant to be friendly or neutral and had the other person interpret it as hurtful or angry. This is mostly because written words lack inflection. That’s why we are easily misunderstood in a text conversation, but not very often during a phone call.

A completely monotone voice might seem like it doesn’t carry any of this information, but that’s not quite true. Instead, people will often interpret a monotone voice as showing signs of disinterest, boredom, or dislike. In this respect, there isn’t really any such thing as a “neutral” voice.

Understanding what different types of inflection mean can help you to include more inflection when talking. Raising the pitch of your voice slightly at the end of a sentence shows surprise or implies that you are asking a question. Lowering the pitch of your voice at the end of a sentence comes across as firm and confident.

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Practice this with different words and see how your inflection can change their meaning. Some words can mean completely different things depending on their inflection. Try the words “good,” “done,” or “really.”

You can also try changing the emphasis that you give particular words in a sentence to help you get to grips with intonation. Try it with the phrase, “I didn’t say he was a bad dog.” The meaning of the sentence changes depending on where you place the emphasis.

For example, there’s a big difference between “I didn’t say he was a bad dog,” “I didn’t say he was a bad dog,” and “I didn’t say he was a bad dog.”

6. Use your body language to improve your voice

Lots of people who have a monotone voice also remain fairly static when they are speaking. Voice actors will tell you that moving around while you are speaking helps your voice to be naturally expressive and varied.

If you’re unconvinced, you can try it yourself. Try saying the word “okay” with different facial expressions. Saying it with a smile makes me sound amused and enthusiastic, whilst saying it with a frown makes my voice lower and makes me sound sad or resentful.

Try using this to your advantage. If you have been practicing delivering lines from your favorite films, as I mentioned before, you can try adding facial expressions into your practice and see how this changes your voice. You can combine this with practicing perfecting a great smile.

When you are ready to practice this in a conversation with other people, there are a few good options. I found it really helpful to practice using my facial expressions to improve my voice during telephone calls. That way, I didn’t have to worry about whether my facial expressions looked silly or extreme.

Another option is to try to keep your face a little more expressive during parts of a conversation where you are silent. This can help you to have a more expressive face naturally, which can then lead to more variety in your voice.

7. Practice your breathing

Your breath has a huge influence on the way that you sound. If you’ve ever taken a stage acting class, you might be aware that most of us are breathing “wrong” most of the time.

Diaphragmatic breathing, where you breathe through your diaphragm and your belly, rather than breathing through the top of your chest, takes a little practice but gives you the most control over all aspects of your voice, especially pitch and volume.[3]
Diaphragmatic breathing doesn’t just help you to speak more clearly and with greater variety. It can also help you to relax during conversations, making it easier for you to feel able to join in.[4]
If you are still struggling to control your breathing, learning to sing is another way to improve your control over all aspects of your voice, including pitch, volume, and breathing. There are loads of online tutorials, or you can find a personal singing coach to help you. The BBC has even put together a step-by-step guide.

Try exercises to overcome a low, soft monotone voice

Often, people with a monotone voice also have a quiet, soft voice. Lower or deeper voices are sometimes harder to hear, so you might benefit from speaking more loudly.

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Using the diaphragmatic breathing exercises can help you to learn to project your voice. This increases the volume of your speech without sounding like you are shouting. This can help to avoid the awkwardness of being asked to repeat yourself because people missed what you were saying.

Projecting your voice isn’t just about breathing. There are other vocal exercises that can help fix a low, monotone voice. You can also think about where you are aiming your voice.

8. Video yourself speaking

It’s really hard to know how your voice sounds without recording yourself. When we hear other people speak, their voice comes to us through our eardrums. When we hear our own voice, we mostly hear it through vibrations in the bones of our faces.

Recording yourself speaking might feel awkward, but it can be helpful in allowing you to understand how you come across to others and in measuring your progress.

If you feel embarrassed videoing yourself, it might feel easier if you use part of a film or play script to practice with. Monologues from films and plays are usually written to express a variety of strong emotions, even in a single speech. This makes them a good choice to practice conveying emotion as well as learning how your voice sounds to others. You can find loads of scripts available online for free.

9. Play with the speed of your speech

An animated voice isn’t just about having variation in your pitch, emphasis, and inflection. It’s also about having some variety in how quickly you speak. In general, people speak a little faster when they are excited by a topic and slow down when they are trying to explain something that they consider important.

Try not to adjust the speed of your speech too much. Speaking too quickly can make it difficult for others to catch what you are saying, and speaking too slowly can become frustrating as people wait for you to make your point. Small adjustments are usually sufficient.

I would always recommend videoing yourself when playing with the speed of your speech. If you know that you have a low, soft voice, you can also try listening to your recordings at a low volume. This will help you to find out whether you are speaking too fast for your volume.

10. Prepare people for your voice changing

This might seem like a strange step but bear with me. If your voice has been monotone for a long time, the people who know you well will have become used to it sounding that way. When you start to speak with more variety, emotion, and confidence, many of them will comment that your voice has changed.

Lots of them will be pleased for you, but they might also misinterpret what is going on. For example, if you are conveying more emotion in your voice, they might assume that you have started feeling passionate about subjects that didn’t used to excite you very much.

Even if people don’t misunderstand what is going on, just having them draw attention to it can leave you feeling singled out and awkward. Preempt this by telling a few trusted friends that you are learning how to not sound monotone. Consider explaining that you’re trying to relax during conversations and to allow your voice to show more of what you’re feeling.

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If you would like them to let you know how well it is working, it can be helpful to ask them to save their comments for a few weeks, so you have a designated time when you can prepare to talk about your progress. That can allow you to feel a little more secure in your ability to practice, knowing that your close friends aren’t going to constantly draw attention to your efforts.

This video by Buzzfeed explains how one of their content creators changed his monotone voice with the help of a speech therapist:

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How To Fix A Monotone Voice?

You probably know this, but before we get started, let’s just clarify: what does monotone voice mean?

‘Mono’ means ‘one’ or ‘single’. ‘Tone’ can mean many things but in this context it means ‘voice expression’ or ‘pitch’. So what does it mean to have a monotone voice? It means that your voice sounds like it doesn’t vary in pitch, that it’s on one note – vocally inexpressive.

And when I googled ‘how to fix a monotone voice?’ I wasn’t surprised to see endless posts saying pretty much the same thing:

monotone delivery = communication killer

So those who speak in monotone talk in a boring way. That’s the common perception.

But if you think you speak in a monotone voice, know that you’re not alone. Adam Davis for Buzzfeed wrote 23 Struggles That People With Monotone Voices Will Understand.

So apart from its benefits for deadpan comedy, the prognosis is pretty damning: if you have a monotone voice you are evidently boring, annoying and untrustworthy (or at least that’s how the world will perceive you)!

I’ve been coaching people’s voices for over 12 years, and I’m not convinced…

Ever heard of Sam Harris? He’s a well respected Neuroscientist, New York Times best-selling author and very popular podcaster (check out his app Waking Up).

Listen to one of his podcasts and most people would describe his voice as monotone. And yet thousands tune in, thousands have downloaded his app and thousands pay to see him at conferences. Monotone? Maybe. But boring, annoying and untrustworthy? Evidently not!

James Rutter in his article The Monotone Myth: Why Your Monotone Voice Might Be A Blessing In Disguise cites a report claiming that a monotone voice in men is more attractive (those men have a greater mating success). Which is something that apparently Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’s book Everybody Lies backs up (although I did find myself asking ‘yes, but what about monotone voice in women?’).

And it’s also a common perception that deeper voices (sometimes associated with being more monotone) convey more authority and confidence – probably because they sound more serious (I’ve written another blog post about deeper voices here).

So – not so fast! Maybe you don’t need to change?

That’s certainly the opinion of lifestyle blogger Kiri Nowak (who speaks with a self-diagnosed monotone voice). In The Struggles Of Having A Monotone Voice And A Straight Face she shares her personal story of feeling the social and professional pressure of needing to be ‘cheery’ in her voice and facial expression for other people. She speaks of her perception that everyone thought that she was intense, serious and even ‘bitchy’ or intimidating – none of which she identifies with. Her choice was to embrace it – although she says she still struggles to completely let go of the way she may be perceived by others.

Why Do I Speak In A Monotone Voice?

Preston Ni MSc in What Does Your Voice Say About You describes case studies where there is a clear link between how you use your voice and a combination of psychological conditioning and socio-cultural experiences (which is I gather a common position in psychotherapy). He suggests that because voice for most people is the main way in which we express ourselves, we clearly make conscious or subconscious choices about how we want to be heard. He concludes by saying that if these choices become habits, like speaking with a monotone voice, then they become harder to change.

Now, I’m not inviting you to the therapist’s couch (and it goes without saying that nature may well be at play as much as nurture) but if you want to speak with colour and you’ve tried but failed to improve the expressivity of your monotone voice, it’s sounds as though (whatever the reason) this habit may have deep roots and will need quite some coaxing plus a good dollop of patience and practice!

How can I improve the expressivity of my monotone voice?

So if – and it’s a big ‘if’ – you really want to improve the expressivity of your monotone voice, surf with care (there’s a lot of advice out there).

Susan Ward in Monotone Voice Speech Lessons – How To Pep Up Your Tired Voice suggests:

Reading sentences happy and sad

Reading something with belief or disbelief

Role playing with play/film scripts

In my experience, this is a really big ask of the average monotone speaker – especially role playing with a script. It doesn’t address ‘how’ to change the voice, just that it should happen by thinking a different emotion or attitude to what we’re saying. Monotone speakers have emotions and attitude, and yet they still sound monotone. That’s the issue, right?

Nancy Daniel in her blog post Have You Been Told That You Speak In A Monotone? suggests that a monotone voice is due to repressing feelings. She suggests that if you express your feelings your voice will have more colour. If true, that sounds like quite a tough thing to do. There are probably good reasons why you may not feel able to speak with emotion and express your feelings, or that you’ve not even got the right to. But she goes on to suggest:

taking a sentence and changing which words you stress, which adds more variety in pitch.

And in Kayla Schwarz’s blog Six Steps to Prevent a Monotone she suggests that the following will help:

Breathe

Stand Up Straight

Use your voice as a highlighter

Pause

Tell a story

Have a conversation

I have a lot of time for conversations about the role of breathing, alignment, pausing and storytelling, but it’s the ‘voice as a highlighter’ that I think could make an impact. I imagine literally highlighting words from some written text that seem to carry the most significance and attempting to modulate my voice on this words. I imagine practicing this with various written text and then trying it out with some phrases I use a lot.

Ashley’s Exercises For How To Correct A Monotone Voice

Let’s get one thing straight: if you do manage to inject more variation into your voice, it’s probably going to feel weird (at least for some time). The reason being that it is not what you would currently call ‘you’. ‘You’ is currently monotone and that’s what is normal. So if you dare to break the status quo then you’ll have to embrace feeling weird for a bit.

The second thing to say is that whatever technique or practice you employ, you’ll have to stay with it and practice before you’ll be able to use it in live conversation. Most people hate change, and habit forming takes time – but you already know that, right?

And just before you have a go, my experience is that people who struggle with this often need a lot of encouragement and a big nudge. This is why coaching can be so helpful.

On to the exercise:

Take a piece of written text, decide which words are most significant in expressing the meaning or feeling behind the content and draw a semicircular line (like a little hill) above those words (you could also highlight the word as well if you think that might be useful).

The up and down movement of the curve is suggesting what you might do with your voice: that your voice goes up in pitch and then down. Try saying this sliding up (on the word ‘up’) and down (on the word ‘down’) in pitch:

‘I’m sliding up and sliding down in pitch’

Try it again.

Now try it with this:

I bet that felt strange?! Try it with something that’s a bit more pertinent to you: an article about a hobby of yours, something work related, or something from current affairs. The more relevant the more you’re likely to see a potential use in your life.

Now, it’s important to notice that pitch is a very variable thing. We don’t just have high or low or up and down, but all sorts of micro-tonal changes which communicate a myriad of different feelings and intentions.

But to begin with, dare yourself to start with this simple idea of using a higher pitch on significant words.

Still need a bit of encouragement or a nudge to take that leap and speak with passion and conviction and greater expressivity through your voice, learn more here.

Dysprosody

Dysprosody, which may manifest as pseudo-foreign accent syndrome, refers to a disorder in which one or more of the prosodic functions are either compromised or eliminated.[1]
Prosody refers to the variations in melody, intonation, pauses, stresses, intensity, vocal quality, and accents of speech.[2] As a result, prosody has a wide array of functions, including expression on linguistic, attitudinal, pragmatic, affective and personal levels of speech.[3] People diagnosed with dysprosody most commonly experience difficulties in pitch or timing control.[3] People diagnosed with the condition can comprehend language and vocalize what they intend to say, however, they are not able to control the way in which the words come out of their mouths. Since dysprosody is the rarest neurological speech disorder discovered[citation needed], not much is conclusively known or understood about the disorder. The most obvious expression of dysprosody is when a person starts speaking in an accent which is not their own. Speaking in a foreign accent is only one type of dysprosody, as the condition can also manifest itself in other ways, such as changes in pitch, volume, and rhythm of speech. It is still very unclear as to how damage to the brain causes the disruption of prosodic function. The only form of effective treatment developed for dysprosody is speech therapy.

Symptoms and signs [ edit ]
Dysprosody is “characterized by alterations in intensity, in the timing of utterance segments, and in rhythm, cadency, and intonation of words.”[4] These differences cause a person to lose the characteristics of their particular individual speech. While the individual’s personality, sensory comprehension, motor skills, and intelligence all remain intact, their grammar as well as vocal emotional capacity can be affected. Prosodic control is essential to speech delivery because it establishes vocal identity, since each individual’s voice has unique characteristics. There are two types of dysprosody, linguistic and emotional, that each present with slightly different symptoms. It is possible that one can present with both forms of dysprosody.[citation needed]
Linguistic dysprosody [ edit ]
Dysprosody works on a linguistic level in that it specifies the intent of one’s speech. For example, prosody is responsible for verbal variations in interrogative versus declarative statements and serious versus sarcastic remarks. Linguistic dysprosody refers to the diminished ability to verbally convey aspects of sentence structure, such as placing stress on certain words for emphasis or using patterns of intonation to reveal the structure or intention of an utterance. For example, individuals with linguistic dysprosody may have difficulty distinguishing the production of interrogative and declarative sentences, switching or leaving out the expected rising and falling shift, respectively.[5] Thus, linguistic dysprosody alters an individual’s vocal identity and impairs verbal communication.[citation needed]
Emotional dysprosody [ edit ]
Emotional dysprosody deals with a person’s ability to express emotions through their speech as well as their ability to understand emotion in someone else’s speech. Whenever we speak, whether we realize it or not, there are nonverbal aspects of our speech that reveal information about our feelings and attitude. There has been strong evidence that dysprosody does affect the ability to express emotion, however the severity may vary depending on what part of the brain has been damaged. Studies have shown that the ability to express emotional information is dependent on motor, perceptual, and neurobehavioral functions all working together in a specific way.[6] A person with dysprosody would not be able to accurately convey emotion vocally, such as through pitch or melody, or make any conclusion about another person’s feeling through his speech.[7] Regardless of the inability to vocally express feeling through prosodic controls, emotions are still formed and felt by the individual. Since there are many different factors which contribute to emotional understanding of speech, it makes it much more complicated to understand.[7]
Related symptoms [ edit ]
After experiencing brain injury, some people may begin speaking in an accent not native to their country of origin, as discussed in the preceding sections, but more common forms of dysprosody consist of alterations in vocal pitch, timing, rhythm, and control, not necessarily resulting in a foreign-sounding accent.[8][9] In addition, there have been some cases in which seizures began to develop in patients with dysprosody,[10] but no decisive conclusions connecting dysprosody and seizure activity have been made. Dysprosody can last for differing durations, from a few months to years, although the reason seems to be unclear.[citation needed]
There are several different types of dysprosody which have been classified. The most common types of dysprosody are associated with dysarthria and developmental coordination disorder, which affect motor processing in speech. Among the most studied types are:

Flaccid dysarthria is characterized by little control over pitch and voice volume, reduced speech rate, and impaired voice quality

is characterized by little control over pitch and voice volume, reduced speech rate, and impaired voice quality Hypokinetic dysarthria is characterized by harsh voice quality, monotone, reduced volume and breathiness

is characterized by harsh voice quality, monotone, reduced volume and breathiness Ataxic dysarthria is characterized by harsh voice quality, reduced speech rate, and poor volume and pitch control

is characterized by harsh voice quality, reduced speech rate, and poor volume and pitch control Developmental verbal dyspraxia is characterized by monotone and poor volume control[11]
There can also be some emotional and mental side effects to dysprosody. Each individual has a distinct voice characterized by all the prosodic elements. Once a person loses control of the timing, pitch, melody, etc. of his speech, he can also feel a sense of loss of personal identity, which can sometimes lead to depression.[3]
Causes [ edit ]
Dysprosody is usually attributed to neurological damage, such as brain tumors, brain trauma, brain vascular damage, stroke and severe head injury. To better understand the causes of the condition, 25 cases of dysprosody diagnosed between 1907 and 1978 were examined more closely. It was found that the majority developed dysprosody after a cerebrovascular accident, while another 6 cases developed after a head trauma. In that same study, 16 of the patients were female, while 9 were male. However, there has been no conclusive evidence that gender affects the onset of dysprosody. There has been no evidence that ethnicity, age, or genetics has any impact on the development of dysprosody.[10]
In another reported case in 2004, a patient presented with dysprosody under interesting circumstances. The patient underwent surgery to correct a Reinke’s edema, which originates in the vocal folds of the larynx. After the surgery, however, she began speaking in a foreign German accent. Neurological examinations were carried out on the patient through magnetic resonance imaging, but the results were completely normal. The only conclusion the doctors could make was that the surgery somehow changed the patient’s vocal identification causing the new voice pattern. It was possible that the patient had a lack of oxygen to the brain during the surgery, which would have gone undetected by the resonance imaging, causing dysprosody.[4] Although most causes of dysprosody are due to neurological damage, this case study shows that there can be other causes which are not necessarily neurologically based.[citation needed]
Diagnosis [ edit ]
When studies of dysprosody first began, diagnosis involved an untrained ear determining impairments in the prosodic elements. However, over time and as dysprosody has been studied more closely, a more concrete method of diagnosis has been developed. One diagnosis technique is a rating scale, such as the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination. The exam is a subjective rating system of volume (from loud to normal to soft), voice (from normal to whisper to hoarse), speech rate (from fast to normal to slow) and intonation which is rated on a scale from 1–7. One indicates no sentence intonation, four is given when sentence intonation is limited to abrupt pauses, and seven indicates normal intonation.[citation needed]
There are also more involved diagnostic evaluations for which contain both productive and comprehensive parts. In the productive part, the patient is asked to say sentences with certain instructions. In the comprehension section, the patient is asked to listen to sentences being said and then answer questions about how they were stated. In order to determine linguistic dysprosody, a patient is asked to read sentences that can either be a statement or a question using both declarative and interrogative intonations. How the patient uses prosodic contours to distinguish between asking a question and saying a statement is recorded. During the comprehension section of the evaluation, a clinician reads simple sentences with either a declarative or interrogative intonation and the patient is asked to identify whether the sentence is a question or a statement. Evaluation of these two parts can determine if the patient has linguistic dysprosody. Emotional dysprosody can be diagnosed by having a patient state a neutral sentence with different emotions, such as happy, sad, and angry. Patients with dysprosody will not be able to convey the emotions very well or differentiate their speech between the different emotions significantly. During the comprehension part, a clinician will say a sentence with specific emotional intonations and the patient must indicate the correct emotion.[7] These techniques ultimately allow for the diagnosis of dysprosody and the degree of its severity in the patient.

In the brain [ edit ]
Since the discovery of dysprosody, scientists have been attempting to declare a particular area of the brain responsible for prosodic control. It was long believed that the right hemisphere of the brain was responsible for prosodic organization, ultimately leading to a grossly oversimplified hemispheric model.[12] This model argued that the organization of language, centered in the left hemisphere, parallels the organization of prosody in the right hemisphere.[1] Since its release, however, very few studies have given the model any substantial support.

Scientists have attributed major control of the temporal aspects of prosody, including rhythm and timing, to the left hemisphere of the brain. On the other hand, pitch perception, such as singing and linguistics related to emotion, are believed to be organized in the right hemisphere. This belief led to the development of the “Functional Lateralization” hypothesis, stating that dysprosody can be caused by lesions in either the right or left hemispheres.[3] It further states that the left is responsible for acoustic and temporal aspects of prosody, while the right is responsible for pitch and emotion.[3] This hypothesis, however, has also been a cause for concern as studies have shown that people with left hemispheric damage exhibit prosodic deficiencies associated with the right hemisphere as defined by the functional lateralization hypothesis and vice versa.[3] It has also been found that damage to the medulla, cerebellum, and basal ganglia may cause dysprosody.[3] These conclusions have led scientists to believe that prosodic organization in the brain is extremely complex and cannot be attributed to hemispheric divisions alone. Although not well understood yet,[when?] studies to identify prosodic organization in the brain continue, primarily through the examination of damaged brain areas in patients with dysprosody and their resulting vocal deficiencies. In addition, dysprosody has been associated with several other conditions, including Parkinson’s condition, Huntington’s condition, gelastic epilepsy (gelastic seizure), and behavioral disorders such as apathy, akinesia and aboulia. Understanding these disorders and the areas of the brain affected in each case is key in conducting further studies of dysprosody. Scientists are continuing to study these patients in the hope of creating more concrete connections between areas of brain damage and prosodic abnormalities, which will hopefully someday lead to a full understanding of prosodic organization in the brain.[13]
Parkinson’s disease is a chronic neurodegenerative disorder that involves the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brain. While common symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are tremors, rigidity, bradykinesia, and postural instability, dysprosody is also a common problem.[14] A common characteristic feature of dysprosody in Parkinson’s is monopitch, or an inability to vary pitch when speaking.[14]
Several studies have been performed investigating the link between Parkinson’s and dysprosody. They have concluded that patients with Parkinson’s disease tend to struggle with specific areas of prosody; they are less able to produce the loudness, pitch, and rhythm patterns required for expressing certain emotions, such as anger.[15] In general, the voice modulations needed to express strong emotions are particularly difficult for patients with Parkinson’s disease. Abnormal pauses in speech are also a characteristic of Parkinsonian dysprosody, including both pauses in general speech and intra-word pauses. A decrease in speech rate can also be observed in Parkinson’s patients.[14] The demonstration of deficits in producing and understanding emotional information in modalities other than speech prosody (e.g. facial and gestural) in individuals with Parkinson’s disease, as well as in individuals with other disorders affecting basal ganglia circuitry, are providing increasing evidence for an additional non-motorically based dimension underlying prosodic deficits[16] and a meta-analysis examining almost 1300 individuals with Parkinson’s disease reported a “robust link” between Parkinson’s disease and deficits in recognizing emotion from voice and facial expression.[17][clarify]
Studies have also shown a progression of dysprosody over time in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Abnormalities in speech rate, pauses, and variation range in speech become worse as the condition progresses.[14] The degradation of prosody in Parkinson’s disease over time is independent of motor control issues, and is thus separate from those aspects of the condition.[14] Studies have shown that treatment for Parkinson’s disease can help with the dysprosody symptoms, however there is usually an improvement in pitch control only and not in the volume and emotional aspects of the condition. These treatments include medications such as L-DOPA as well as electrophysiological treatments.[18]
Psychiatric conditions [ edit ]
Neurological conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder, and several psychiatric conditions, such as clinical depression and schizophrenia, are characterized by distinctive prosodic patterns.[3] Several studies found an atypical neural processing of expressive dysprosody in individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.[19]
Treatments [ edit ]
The most effective course of treatment for dysprosody has been speech therapy. The first step in therapy is practice drills which consist of repeating phrases using different prosodic contours, such as pitch, timing, and intonation. Typically a clinician will say either syllables, words, phrases, or nonsensical sentences with certain prosodic contours, and the patient repeats them with the same prosodic contours. Treatment following the lines of the principles of motor learning (PML) was found to improve the production of lexical stress contrasts.[20] Once a patient is able to effectively complete this drill, they can start with more advanced forms of speech therapy. Upon completion of therapy, most people can identify prosodic cues in natural situations, such as normal conversation. Speech therapy has proven most effective for linguistic dysprosody because therapy for emotional dysprosody requires much more effort and is not always successful. One way that people learn to cope with emotional dysprosody is to explicitly state their emotions, rather than relying on prosodic cues.[7]
Over time, there have also been cases of people with dysprosody gaining their native accent back with no course of treatment.[3] Since the part of the brain responsible for dysprosody has not definitely been discovered, nor has the mechanism for the brain processes which cause dysprosody been found, there has not been much treatment for the condition by means of medication.

Future research [ edit ]
In the past decade research on dysprosody has begun to focus on its relationship to other, more common conditions such as Parkinson’s condition. Scientists believe that studying the connections between dysprosody and these better understood conditions may help them pinpoint specific areas of the brain responsible for prosody.[3] Recent research has looked into the development of Dysprosody in connection with Parkinson’s condition, not only looking at voice and speech issues, but also the effects on cognitive-linguistic and prosody perception and production.[21]
History [ edit ]
The first documented occurrence of dysprosody was described by Pierre Marie, a French neurologist, in 1907. Marie described the case of a Frenchman who started speaking in an Alsatian accent after a cerebrovascular accident caused right hemiplegia.[10]
The next documented report of dysprosody occurred in 1919 by Arnold Pick, a German neurologist. He noticed a 29-year-old Czechoslovak had started speaking in a Polish accent following a stroke. Pick’s patient also had right hemiparesis, a lesser version of hemiplegia, and aphasia after the stroke. Pick noticed that not only was the accent altered, but the timing of the speech was slower, and the patient spoke with uncharacteristic grammatical mistakes. Pick later wanted to follow up on his research but was not able to, since the patient had died with no autopsy performed.[8]
The most well documented account of dysprosody was in 1943 by G. H. Monrad-Krohn. A woman, Astrid L., in Norway was hit with a shell fragment during an air raid in 1941 through her left frontal bone, leaving her brain exposed.[8] She was unconscious for four days and when she regained consciousness at the hospital, she was hemiplegic on her right side, was having seizures, and was aphasic.[8] Initially she could only speak in monosyllables, yes and no, but then started to form sentences. When first starting to speak again, she also spoke with uncharacteristic grammatical errors, but over time they became much less pronounced and eventually she gained back full fluency of speech. However, she sounded as though she was speaking her native Norwegian with a German accent. It was two years later that she was admitted to the Neurological University Clinic in Oslo, Norway and seen by Dr. Monrad-Krohn. Krohn examined the patient and noted that there was no noticeable difference in her fluency, motor functions, sensory functions, or coordination. Upon examination of her skull, he found a large scar on the left fronto-temporo-parietal region.[8] This was not as helpful as Krohn would have liked. Since the scar was so extensive, it was impossible for Krohn to pinpoint the exact region of the brain which was causing this altered speech. Krohn then ran tests on Astrid to assess her language comprehension. He found that in addition to her altered speech patterns, she had trouble finding the Norwegian words for trivial objects, such as light switch and match box. She also had to repeat the examiner’s questions aloud before answering, had to say words out loud to herself before writing them down, and had difficulty comprehending written instructions.[8] Krohn could not understand how she had acquired a foreign accent; it could not be attributed to any known disorder or condition. For those with this type of dysprosody, sometimes the accents they speak are from countries to which the person has never been. This is very puzzling for neuroscientists, since dialects and accents are considered to be an acquired behavior of learning pitches, intonations and stress patterns.[10]
There have been another 21 cases documented up until 1978. Thirteen of those cases were documented at the Mayo Clinic, while the others were documented at clinics and hospitals elsewhere.[10]
There have been more recent occurrences of people who have developed accents after brain injuries, specifically strokes. In 1999, Judi Roberts had a stroke which paralyzed the right side of her body, leaving her unable to speak. Over time, her speech began to improve, eventually recovering full fluency, but she developed a British accent despite having lived in the US for her whole life.[22] In 2006, another report was documented of Linda Walker, a native of England, who developed a foreign accent after having a stroke.[23]
See also [ edit ]

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