Scott Adams is a (victim of) Spaz (-modic Dysphonia)

For three years, Scott Adams, creator of those wacky Dilbert comics, had been suffering from one of those disabilities that affects a lot of people but you've never really heard of.

Spasmodic Dysphonia is a disease that apparently messes with some of the language areas of the brain, causing its victims to effectively lose their voice. Curiously, however, SD patients apparently retain their ability to talk in other voices (e.g. falsetto or baritone) , or while reciting poetry (but it has to be Chaucer, for some reason).

Recovering from SD is relatively rare, though there are some Botox-related treatments. By all accounts, then, Scott Adams is a very lucky man. As of today, at least, he has regained most of his normal voice, and is able to speak without requiring any treatment.

I'd be interested to learn more about this disease, since it's new to me. It seems to be an adult-onset thing (typically showing up in the 40's or 50's), and according to AP, it affects as many as 30,000 Americans.

Adams isn't the first well-known figure to develop the condition. In 1992, public radio host Diane Rehm developed a scratchy cough, and by 1998 she had to take a four-month leave because her speech had become so tortured. Doctors feared she had throat cancer, Parkinson's disease or Lou Gehrig's disease — until researchers at Johns Hopkins University diagnosed her with SD.

Rehm's voice still sounds distinctly frail and cracked, but she has maintained a radio career. She said other patients should take comfort in the fact that she, Adams and others have recovered much of their speech.

Good to know that there might be something you can do about it... would recovery from what appears to be a primarily cognitive disorder imply some sort of re-mapping, and if so, what does that say about plasticity in adults?