For more than a decade, Jimmy said almost nothing in the presence of other people, including his family. His father, Raymond Nguyen, said doctors believed Jimmy suffered from selective mutism, a condition whose name is self-explanatory and is often triggered by intense anxiety. They said music might help relax him.
Raymond Nguyen gently pushed his son into the Citi Performing Arts Center’s 30-week musical theater program at Odyssey High School, now known as Boston Green Academy, thinking maybe he would learn to play drums or tap his feet to a four-four beat.
But by summer’s end, something else happened.
“He was singing,’’ said Ruth Mercado-Zizzo, Citi’s director of education. “He was rapping. He even danced - and not just any dance but sort of interpretive hip-hop style. And the thing is, he was good, very good. It’s like he had been hiding these talents.’’
While Mercado-Zizzo offers a humble assessment of Jimmy’s transformation - “We just provided a forum; he did the work,’’ she said - those who know him say the new “loud’’ Jimmy is nothing short of a miracle.
A miracle brought about by what? No one is sure, but there is reason to think that intense exposure to music may have played a role.
Music psychologists and neurologists say beats and tunes can have personality-changing effects.
“It’s not so unusual for music to wake up children with characteristics of autism,’’ said Richard Edwards, an Ohio Wesleyan University professor who studies how the human brain learns to be musical.
Paul Mazeroff, a psychologist and professor at McDaniel College in Westminster, Md., researching how the brain processes music and the relationship between music and emotion, said Jimmy’s transformation makes sense to him.
“Music is often used to regulate both emotion and basic motor activity,’’ Mazeroff said. “Think about it. Certain music motivates you to move, to become energized. Other soothes you. The point is music helps develop focus.’’
