Why does stuttering go away when singing

News World Opinion Business. Share this —. Follow NBC News. The Body Odd and Kim Carollo. We all know the brain works in mysterious ways, but every so often we are reminded of just how magical it is. Music is used in the treatment of developmental and acquired disorders including Autism, stuttering , prematurity and brain injury patients.

We know that music has special qualities that excite different areas of the brain. Some of these are quite similar to language and include prosody, stress, pitch and inflection. Music has actually been used for years in the treatment of a range of speech disorders.

Gabby Giffords used Melodic Intonation Therapy to help treat her aphasia, an inability to comprehend and formulate language, a result of her brain injury due to the attempt on her life.

But why can a stutter disappear for some folks when singing? The folks at the University of Iowa have some of the answers:. One is called easy onset of speech, or easy voice, or smooth speech. This describes the way you sing. Speech therapists actually use the easy onset strategy when helping people who stutter. Today, he is one of the most distinguished songwriters of the world. The Coldplay lead singer had a stutter growing up. He still stutters occasionally. Kylie Minogue is an internationally acclaimed singer and actress.

She is the highest-selling Australian singer of all time. Despite her overwhelming success, she has spoken about her struggles with speech disfluency. She began to sing more frequently to stop stuttering. In a now popular Tedx Talk, Megan Washington opened up about the incessant bullying she faced because of her childhood-onset stutter. Attending years of therapy helped her discover the smooth-speech technique. Although she is not comfortable with the sing--song way of talking, she admits that it is similar to singing.

Today, she stutters proudly and she focuses on her music. If you watch his live performances closely, you will notice that Elvis does stutter while talking to the audience in between songs! However, on stage, his voice and singing are bold and effortless. Before they became world-renowned singers, songwriters and performers, they were children and teens with a stutter!

However, instead of focusing on just the problem, they relied on singing as a way to express themselves. In the long run, they discovered their love, passion and talent for music. Then, there was no stopping them! Singing is as natural as speaking. Therefore it serves as a valuable tool during stuttering treatment.