Steven Schaefer, MD, Ben Watson, PhD, Frances Freeman, PhD, et al, of The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, and The University of Texas at Dallas and Arlington reported the results of their electromyographic study of seven spasmodic dysphonic patients and five normal controls to the American Speech and Hearing Association National Meeting. This report was unique in that: (1) vegetative, paralinguistic, and linguistic tasks elicited activity in different regions of the brain; (2) control subjects were used to check the validity of the observations in the spasmodic dysphonic subjects; (3) multiple laryngeal, vagally innervated, nonlaryngeal vagally innervated, and nonvagally innervated muscles were assessed by indwelling electrodes; and (4) digital processing techniques were used to provide both qualitative and quantitative assessment of electromyographic signals. The results of this study offer several new insights into spasmodic dysphonia. First, the presence of abnormal neuromotor activity within the levator palatini demonstrates that