Foreign Accent Syndrome — Article Cloze

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Read the article about Foreign Accent Syndrome and choose the word or phrase that best completes each sentence.

Imagine waking up one morning and speaking with a completely different — choose —syndromeaccentcondition , and no matter how hard you try, you can't speak with your usual voice. This is what happened to May Pei, a doctor from Australia. As well, another woman from Australia, Susan Carpenter, had a similar experience.

Susan went shopping with her Aunt and — choose —abnormallyget attentionin the middle of a sentence her accent suddenly changed. Her Aunt thought she was — choose —get attentionin the middle ofplaying around but soon realized that Susan wasn't joking. "It was funny for about ten seconds," said Susan, "until I realized that I couldn't make the accent go away."

Oddly enough, both girls accents were Irish. Neither of them have family or friends from Ireland, and neither have ever visited there.

The worse part of this — choose —conditiondisordersyndrome for these young women is that the people around them think the two women are just trying to — choose —playing aroundget attentionin the middle of . "It's very hurtful when the people around you don't understand how real, and — choose —awfultraumaticabnormally , this problem is," said May. "I don't sound like myself, I don't feel like myself."

After hearing about their stories, a famous TV show decided to bring the two women together and try to find out what's going on. They took them to see Dr. Samuel Parch, a — choose —surgeonsurgeryneurologist and brain — choose —neurologistsurgerysurgeon . "What both women are experiencing is Foreign Accent Syndrome," says Dr. Parch.

FAS is a speech — choose —syndromeconditiondisorder . It usually happens after a head injury, stroke, or some other type of damage to the brain. Although it's extremely rare, it's a real — choose —disorderconditionsyndrome . Only about 100 people have been — choose —diagnosedundergonecontributed with this condition since the first known case in 1907.

"It's a bit of a — choose —conditiondisorderconundrum ," says Dr. Parch, "because neither of them have had a — choose —traumaticawfulabnormally head injury or brain — choose —proceduresurgeonsurgery , and nothing unusual shows up in the traditional — choose —MRT scansneuronsprocedure ."

But there were some changes to both of them that may have — choose —contributedimpairsdiagnosed to their syndrome. In the one case, May had recently — choose —diagnosedcontributedundergone a minor — choose —MRT scansproceduresurgery called a tonsillectomy (removal of the tonsils from the throat entrance). In the second case, Susan suffers from chronic — choose —conditionsyndromemigraines (frequent and serious headaches). So doctor Parch gave both women a neurological scan of the brain.

What he discovered was that the — choose —migrainesMRT scansneurons in the language centers of the brain were firing — choose —abnormallyawfultraumatic . "Compared to the normal brain, some neurons were firing too much, and some to little. This condition — choose —diagnosedcontributedimpairs their ability to control the muscles used to produce speech. So it's safe to say, these women aren't trying to fool anyone. This is for real."