In looking at sites that address the therapeutic affects of singing, I ran across the following article: The Therapeutic Effects of Singing in Neurological Disorders  (Wan, Rueber, Hohmann, and Schlaug). They did a meta analysis of research studies looking at the affects of singing for patients who had problems with stuttering, or vocal problems due to strokes (aphasia), and Parkinson's disease. One conclusion was that singing helps these patients with neurological disorders because it makes use of both right and left sides of the brain. In everyday conversation, spoken language generally uses only the left side of the brain. Also in the process of singing words, individual phonemes, sound units, are more easily identified due to their elongation within the sung line of text. Parkinson's patients often experience difficulties with a weak and breathy speaking voice. By singing, they increase the strength and resonance of their voices by learning to use more body support for the breath column coupled with increased tension in the glottis. The article also referenced the "Lee Silverman Voice Treatment".

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996848/?report=classic

I visited a blog site for this treatment and have captured their initial presentation and my question to the author, Allison Berglund, MS CCC-SLP:

Barbara Steinhaus, on September 4, 2013 at 10:37 pm said:

I am a professional singer and professor of Music. From what I have read here, I wondered if you felt that this “speech” technique was as effective if you sang vocal sounds instead of speaking vocal sound? Please visit my blog: singmewell.blogspot.com. I look forward to hearing what you would consider.
Thank you, Barbara Steinhaus

 

http://sliers.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/find-your-voice-lee-silverman-voice-treatment-lsvt%c2%ae/#comment-322