Speech “defects” and incorrect laterality

It has been known for many decades that left-handed people can stutter when forced to write with their right hand. Why does this happen and why are speech disorders more common in men?

I was brought to this topic by the fact that men appear more often than women with obvious speech defects at laterality seminars. There may be other causes of speech defects and deviations. Here we deal with speech defects associated with incorrect laterality.

Among the speech “impairments” that appear in the seminar participants present stuttering, stammering, slurred speech and muffled voice. Sometimes, there is also someone who blinks for a long time while speaking, to the point that his/her eyes are almost always closed while speaking and they are only occasionally open (something like “inverse” blinking).

Others spend a long time looking for the right words, or they can’t “articulate”. They don’t keep a thread of speech. Even if they start a sentence, they do not finish it, but jump to another topic and get completely lost. It may resemble a “Cimrman’s” inability to “hold” or “let go” of an idea.

The probable reason why speech defects appear more in undetected left-handed men than in undetected left-handed women is given by the physiological differences between male and female brains. Men only have one speech centre located in the dominant hemisphere of the brain. When they live in an incorrect laterality, the impulses to the speech centre go through the creative hemisphere, not directly to the dominant hemisphere. This can cause the speech defects mentioned above.

Women also have a speech centre in the dominant hemisphere, but they have a second, smaller one in the creative hemisphere. This is also proven by the fact that many men stop speaking in one part of the brain after a stroke, while women do not.

Many men who come to our seminar with a speech impediment and discover that they are hidden left-handers leave with a completely different feeling regarding speaking. Other participants hear that the person in question speaks more fluently, louder, more confidently and is easier to understand. It happens to women, too. In the seminar, we do not devote any time to speaking, we only perform exercises to determine laterality and let the body show its natural setting.

One participant recorded himself before and after the seminar. At the time of the polarity reversal after the seminar, he compared the recordings and the difference in the speech was very significant. Two months after the seminar, he was able to conduct a group of visitors and explain to them what was where. He was not able to do that before the seminar.

A speech defect does not always have to be related to incorrect laterality. One participant came to the seminar with a speech impediment and it was found that he is right-handed and lives his correct laterality. The cause of his speech defect was elsewhere.

My son once recorded me reading a text. During the recording, I alternately stimulated the right and left hands with the tool. The difference in the speech was so big that it was not possible to digitally edit the recording to the point that the spoken text was the same. All of this information comes from my observations and experiences. Each person can choose their own opinion on the given topic.

Do you know why people fiddle with something (a pen) in their hand when they talk? Don’t believe me, try it.