Can somebody tell me what part of the brain affects speech?

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I'm wondering this because I've been headbanging a lot lately, and notice i've been less and less and less verbal, wondering if im messing my brain up. I know i need to stop headbanging, im waiting to save up some money to buy some more therapy sensory items to help me with that, just right now im broke . I know im not the most verbal, but lately i feel i've becoming worse with my language skills especially lately . What part of the brain affects your speech and language skills? and is it possible for headbanging to make that part worse ?

Hope somebody can help me, thanks for reading hehe.

Short Answer: It's complicated. There are many parts of the brain involved in the production of speech.

In order to speak, you need to do the following things, all of which involve multiple brain regions: understand language, understand how to use language, be able to physically vocalize, be able to form words in a way that people understand, be motivated to speak, time your production of speech so that it fits into conversation, translate thoughts into spoken language, and so much more.

There are plenty of books devoted to this subject alone (the neurobiology of speech production).

I know that the left hemisphere plays a big role in language but thats as much as I do know lol sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

Broca's area, front left (usually left, at least).

Yes, you can mess up your brain with too many hits. Look at how boxers get "stupid". (At least I assume that actually happens.) Take care of yourself.

Yes, that area plays a major role, but it's a lot more complicated than that. Both cerebral hemispheres are involved, which means that the corpus callosum is also involved. And let's not forget the mid-brain - it's hard to do much of anything without using your hypothalamus and your limbic system.



It's known as "pugilistic dementia". It's scary because it can take a long time before the effects become obvious. So this is pretty serious.

I hope you can do something about it - see your neurologist, do whatever it takes to prevent yourself from banging your head so much. I hope you're OK!

Thank you for your replies, i know i need to help fix my headbanging, it gets bad. I do also notice my senses are becoming even more hyper, need for oral fixations have become more serious, my hearing i need even my noise cancelling headphones even if the vacume or anything comes on, i hate noise now even if the tv is too loud, also sense of smell has made me unable to enter places with perfume or candles, before i could handle it a bit, but now not at all, my sense of touch stayed the same lol i hate being touched lol, unless its a bear hug or weight then its okay, so if u want a hug u gotta sit on me first lol. Anyways thanks hehe!

It's more likely that you're probably overwhelmed to a greater extent for some reason or none, which equates to more "stims" and less talking.

I notice that you're in your early twenties; it's possible that your "disorder" is back in full-swing, which happens for many with Autistic Disorder. If it is, it'll get better later on in life (forties or so).

really? ugh 40s dang thats going to be forever lool. Thanks for that information though daniel hehe

Yeah. For some reason [that no one knows why], it's common for Autism to return to the level that it was or near that level when the person was a child, and before the gains one made throughout childhood/adolescence. It's pretty funny, as you have an adult who loses their ability to talk to people (or most of their ability), even though they spoke decently in their teenage years, and they're also more "sensitive" to the environment, which equates to more "stimming" behaviour. This usually improves like it did prior, and the people gain their abilities back and become less sensitive to the world around midlife.

*Daniel eagerly awaits his forties*

Also, as I said, you could be more stressed for some reason or another; this can make you lose your ability to talk, and you'll probably want to "stim" in a more severe way. If you're chronically stressed, you'll be chronically worse in regards to Autistic symptoms.

wow thats interesting, haha so instead of a midlife crisis, we get a midlife vacation yay us lol. Yea im not really stressed out about anything though, well not that i know of, maybe i gotta think more into it first. Thanks though, you always have great information, and make me double think my thoughts hehe!

I believe it's Broca's and Wernicke's areas. But skulls are pretty thick, I doubt you're causing yourself any lasting damage unless you're like ramming yourself against concrete. Hope you feel better : )

hehe thanks, and i have slammed my head against concrete, telephone booths, walls on bathrooms, u name it lol, but havent split it open yet, so keep ur fingers crossed hehe.

Check LabPets thread in the haven, nonverbal, she has links, brain pictures, stuff!

Broca's area is involved with speech production. Wernicke's area is involved with the comprehension of speech. These are the two main speech centers in the brain, but, as others have said, language is a very complicated thing. There are many cell assemblies in the brain that link a word to its general meaning, past experience with the word, the color and shape of the word (if it's a noun), etc. Verbs tend to be processed in the frontal regions of the brain, whereas adjectives and nouns are processed further back.
-OddDuckNash99-

the mid anterior temporal area is another speech part and can affect it in different ways from impairment to non verbalism,this is the cause for the NVism am have,it shows abnormality/difference on an EEG.

Wow, didn't know that but it certainly fits me as well.

Although the head-banging has gotten better -- with a whole lot of constant work -- and I'm not in my forties yet, not even quite thirty yet. I've heard from a few other autistic people who had this stuff get better by their late twenties or early thirties as well.

As far as brain damage, yes it is a real concern. As is the fact that repeated head trauma can lead to early-onset dementia apparently. That is one of the things that motivated me to stop doing it. That and the fact that I knew that since I was sometimes doing it until I passed out, or until my motor skills or vision went wonky, then I must be doing some damage.

Be aware that if you hit your head hard enough, you'll get brain damage on the opposite side of your head, too.

The way I was taught to stop doing it was this:

Do each step until you can do it a good deal of the time, and then move on to the next one. This may take days or it may take years, don't freak out if you just can't do something. Also you might find that sometimes you can do these things and sometimes you can't, don't freak out about that either. Or about the fact that occasionally things will seem to go back to the way they were before: just pick up and start over again if that's the case. It takes awhile because this is often happening at times when it is the hardest to do any of these things.

First, try to catch yourself doing it. Begin to think consciously about the fact that you are doing it, and notice when you are doing it.

Second, try to, after you catch yourself doing it, think "stop" in some manner. Some people could think the word in an auditory or visual way, or a stop sign or something, but I tended to just insert a weird pause in my thinking that wasn't auditory or visual, I'd just sort of force a blank spot. Don't think it in a punitive manner or a way that makes you feel awful about doing it, try to avoid an emotional sort of "stop", just think it as in "this is something I would like to do".

Third, try to insert some actual control over your body during the time when you've been exerting control over your thoughts. This is one of the hardest parts to do so don't worry if it takes a long time. The control over your body does not have to mean stopping it, it can just be doing it slower or faster or harder or lighter or something, just some degree of control over anything.

Fourth, start moving that kind of control towards stopping. At first, it's probably not going to be stopping, it's probably just going to be something closer to stopping than you were at before. That's also okay.

Fifth, start actually stopping. It doesn't have to be for a long time, it can just be for a split second.

Sixth, start widening the time you stop a little bit until you're stopping for a little longer amount of time.

Seventh, go even longer.

Eighth, start trying to move all these steps (one by one again if you have to) closer and closer to the beginning of the head-banging.

Ninth, after you've got it at or very close to the beginning, you should start noticing that sometimes you'll manage to do these things in the instant before you start, whatever thought, emotion, or experience, or whatever, sets it off.

Another thing to remember during this -- if you can't stop the motion altogether, it might be possible to redirect it (slowly, just like all the other things) to either a part of your body that is less likely to be damaged (arms or legs, not torso) or an object near you.

I started head-banging when I was a kid. It got worse when I was a teenager. And I started learning how to do this when I was nineteen, at which point I could do it several times a second for hours. Now that I'm twenty-eight I very rarely do it anymore.

And weirdly this worked even though it seemed largely involuntary at the time. Two other autistic people taught me how to do it. It also works on violent impulses in general, which I have down to almost never now (probably less often even than the average person, because of the amount of control I've gained).

And a lot of the time it took constant concentration for a really long time until it became second nature. None of it was easy and none of it was fast. But it worked through constant almost obsessive repetition of these steps over a period of years. Also, as I said before, sometimes it gets worse after you've already started, it doesn't mean you're back at the beginning again, it just means for whatever reason, you're more overloaded or frustrated or whatever causes it, or you have less energy to stop it. But it can and does get better after a while. I don't know if this would work for you or not but it worked for me and two other people I know who used to have real problems with this.

Also, accepting other stims and such is a good thing because often I found that suppressing them led to far more violent movements including head-banging. (Many parents, training their children out of stimming, find this to be true as well.)