Foreign accent syndrome
Sophia lived all her life in the United Kingdom one day she suddenly experienced
difficulty in speech her speech pattern changed so dramatically that people around her thought that she had developed a French accent this is the rare medical condition for an accent syndrome before we start I want to make it clear that these patients do not develop any fluency in a foreign language they speak the same native language but differently resembling a foreign accent to understand this medical condition .
first we have to understand how normal speech works let's imagine you want to speak a certain word the motor cortex is where movements are initiated there are
separate specialized areas in the motor
cortex to control vocal cords and other
muscles of speech but it's not where the
words are formed word formation occurs
in a special area of the brain called Broca's area it will then send signals
to the motor cortex to initiate complex
muscle movements of vocal cords and
other muscles of speech the cerebellum
of the brain helps to coordinate these movements if the Broca's area of the brain is damaged you'll still know what to speak but you'll have trouble generating the words the condition is
called Broca's aphasia this is a speech
disorder but others around you can mistake this for a different accent Broca's aphasia is not the only cause of foreign accent syndrome damage to the motor cortex and cerebellum can also create speech disorders that can be mistaken as foreign accents these brain
areas can get damaged due to strokes
multiple sclerosis brain trauma or brain tumors foreign accent syndrome can occur even without any brain lesions there's a psychiatric disorder called conversion disorder when there's a stressful event in life the patient unconsciously converts the stress into physical symptoms therefore in these patients that causes not anatomical but rather functional diagnosis has done after an evaluation with a multidisciplinary team of neurologists knurl linguists psychiatrist and speech and language pathologists brain imaging is conducted to rule out a brain lesion the treatment is not simple supportive treatment can be offered with speech therapy but the true cause of the disease should be identified and treated to get a complete cure.
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