My AB/SD was quite severe when it became “full blown.” I was not understandable at all on the telephone and was barely understandable in person. It didn’t matter much, though, because a single sentence exhausted me.

What I now call “alternative phonation,” I initially referred to as my “engineered voice” because that concept reflects what it was like to develop it. Others have used the term “reprogramming the speech mechanism.”

The underlying fundamental stems from something familiar to those of us with SD – our speech is good while yawning or laughing because the neural pathways invoked during those activities are different than the paths that don’t work correctly as a result of SD. Alternative phonation utilizes pathways that do work to facilitate the production of voice. This remapping of the body’s workings takes time and effort. Additionally, work on breath support, control, and usage was essential.

The starting point was to produce a sound at the end of a laugh and develop the ability to manipulate that sound. Then, unless you want to be perceived as having more of a problem than just SD, a critical element is getting your brain to go where it goes when you laugh without laughing out loud! (This is very difficult, but at least it keeps you laughing.) Following are the development of the repertoire of sounds, the ability to combine those sounds, and control over pitch and phrasing. Many standard speech therapy exercises are used to develop these skills.

This process is time consuming and frustrating, but it was well worth it to me. During the first year, I worked on my voice for as long each day as I could tolerate. After six months, I was understandable even though my voice was poor; also, my endurance was quite limited. After a year, my voice quality was still far from normal and I regularly used amplification, but I didn’t have any real limitations.

Now, after three years, I always can produce easily understandable speech. However, speech remains effortful, quality varies based on tiredness and “bad voice days,” and I still often use amplification. Interestingly, I continue to improve as I attend to my technique. No one seems to know what level of achievement is possible, so I just keep trying.

We read your post on the subject of "Alternative Phonation" and it's no problem to post a link on this BB to a recording of your SD voice at various phases of your personal "engineered voice" program, as you describe it above.

The link, supporting the written information, but in an auditory format, is relevant to the purpose of this forum. You're not selling a commercial or proprietary product or service. What a link would do is demonstrate, in the format many of us are attuned to ("how do we sound?"), the information you've provided in print.

Other than deleting commercial advertising links, we discourage links not related to SD or persistent pushing of personal websites and theories. You're fine though. Go ahead and post your related voice link.

There is one important clarification I want to make based on your post. This is not my personal program. I was taught this technique by a speech therapist after being encouraged by a couple of MDs to give it a try.

The website is http://buffalo-creek-press.com/sd/up/uploads/index.php. The recording of how my voice currently sounds is in the file FABNls.wav. There are no recordings posted of the various phases of my progress.