Singing as speech therapy? Why rhythm and lyric type may do the trick

Left-hemispheric stroke patients often suffer a profound loss of spontaneous speech – known as aphasia. Yet, many patients are still able to sing entire pieces of text fluently. Some clinicians have taken this as proof that singing may help speech production and speech recovery in aphasic patients. Recent research now offers a different answer: it may not be singing itself that aids speech production and speech recovery in aphasic patients, but rhythm and lyric type. These new insights may call previous assumptions on singing therapies into question.