Stammering, Its Cause and Cure, Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue [i wanna iguana read aloud .TXT] 📗
- Author: Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
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The most that can be expected from the very best mail course for the cure of stammering is that the subscriber will receive information worth as much as that which might be in a library book. He receives this in installments and for privilege of reading it piece-meal, pays from $50 to $100.
It is hopeless to try to cure stammering or stuttering by any method unless the instructor knows his business. And this knowledge comes not by chance but by long, hard study.
MAIL CURES A FAILURE: No stammerer should attempt to be cured by any correspondence method. When the decision has been made to have a speech defect removed, the sufferer should place himself under the care of a reputable institution, the past record of which entitles it to consideration. Correspondence cures are a waste of money, a waste of time and finally leave the stammerer with the firm-founded belief that his trouble is absolutely incurable, when, as a matter of fact, he may have a comparatively simple form of stuttering or stammering which could be quickly eradicated by the proper institutional treatment.
At no time should the stammerer resort to the use of any mechanical contrivance to aid him in speaking correctly. The cause of the trouble as previously explained, is inco-ordination. Mechanical contrivances to hold the tongue in a certain position, elevate the palate or for any other purpose may be positively harmful and should be strictly avoided—ALWAYS.
A diagnosis is an examination or analysis to determine the identity of a disease and to reveal its cause and characteristics. A reputable medical man will not undertake the treatment of any malady without having first made a searching examination and a thorough diagnosis of the trouble.
In the case of the stammerer or stutterer, expert diagnosis is very important and should be undertaken only by a diagnostician who has had previous training and experience of sufficient duration to enable him to be classed as an expert on the subject. No stammerer or stutterer, however, should overlook the value of such diagnosis, for the reason that there are so many forms of speech disorders that it is totally impossible as well as unsafe for the sufferer himself to try to determine the exact nature of his trouble.
I recall the case of a certain young man who had depended upon his own knowledge to determine the identity of his speech defect and the nature of his trouble. When a boy, he had swallowed a small program pencil with a metal tip, injuring his vocal cords, so he said, and causing him to become a stammerer. An examination of his condition and a careful diagnosis of his case revealed the fact that his vocal organs were as normal as those of any person who had never stammered. The diagnosis also revealed the fact that his stammering was not originally caused by any organic defect or any injury to the vocal organs, but that, on the other hand, he had, in the first place, inherited a predisposition to stammer, his father and his grandfather both having been stammerers whose trouble had never been remedied. The diagnosis showed that the onset of the trouble immediately after swallowing the pencil was due chiefly to the nervous shock and fright caused by the accident, which, in conjunction, with the inherited predisposition toward stammering, was too much for the boy’s mental control and he immediately developed into a stammerer. The young man had believed for many years that his defective utterance was totally incurable, that it was due to an organic defect which could not be remedied. The diagnosis quickly revealed, however, that a very different condition was responsible for his trouble and as a consequence, he found himself able to be cured where, without expert diagnosis, he had resigned himself to a life as a stammerer.
Another case which also shows the stammerer’s inability to diagnose his own trouble accurately was that of a woman who persistently refused to allow her son to have his case diagnosed, because of her belief that he was incurable and that the diagnosis would be a waste of time and money.
After months of coaxing, however, he succeeded in getting her to consent and I gave him a thorough diagnosis and report on his condition. This mother had been unduly alarmed—the boy was still in a curable stage and in fact completed the necessary work in much less than the usual time. This is but another case that shows the loss which comes from not knowing the truth.
Written Report of Diagnosis Valuable: It is well to get a personal diagnosis of the case where possible, but if this cannot be done, a written history of the case, together with a statement of the symptoms and present condition, should enable the expert diagnostician of speech defects to make a thorough and reliable diagnosis of the trouble.
This diagnosis, to be of the most value to the stammerer or stutterer, should be made up in the form of a written report, so that the information may be in permanent form and so that the sufferer can study his own case in all its angles.
WHAT DIAGNOSIS SHOULD SHOW: First of all, of course, the diagnosis should identify and label your trouble. It should tell what form of speech defect is revealed by the symptoms; it should tell the cause of the trouble; the stage it is now in; should indicate whether or not there is any organic defect; should give information as to the possibilities of outgrowing the trouble; and, most important of all, should state whether or not the disorder is in a curable stage.
When it is remembered that nearly a dozen more or less common speech disorders can be named, almost in one breath, and that some of these disorders may pass through four or five successive stages, it will be seen that an expert diagnosis and report is almost a necessity to the stammerer or stutterer who would have reliable and authoritative information about his speech disorder.
The stammerer or stutterer who voluntarily remains in the dark, who is satisfied with gross ignorance of his trouble, is surely not on the road to freedom of speech.
The most able man cannot decide correctly without the facts. To decide in the absence of information is guesswork—and guesswork is a poor method of deciding what to do—in the case of the stammerer as in every other case.
Therefore, it behooves the stammerer to become enlightened to as great an extent as possible, to banish ignorance of his trouble and replace it with facts and sound knowledge.
If the reader has followed this work carefully up to this point, he is now informed on the causes of stuttering and stammering, on their characteristic tendencies and their peculiarities. We are now ready to ask, “What are the correct methods for the cure of stuttering and stammering?” and to answer that question authoritatively.
As to the successful mode of procedure in determining the proper methods for the cure of stuttering and stammering, I know of no suggestion better than that offered by Alexander Melville Bell, who says:
“The rational, as it is experimentally the successful method of procedure, is first to study the standard of correct articulation (NOT the varieties of imperfect utterance) and then not to go from one extreme to another, but at every step to compare the defective with the perfect mode of speech and so infallibly to ascertain the amount, the kind and the source of the error.”
We have already done that: We have located the cause of the trouble. We not only know that stammering is caused by a lack of coordination between the brain and the muscles of speech, but we know the things which may bring about the lack of coordination. Now, how to cure? Simply remove the cause. Re-establish normal coordination between the brain and the muscles of speech. Restore normal brain control over the speech organs. Make these organs respond freely, naturally and promptly to the brain messages.
That sounds simple. But if it is as simple as it sounds, why is it that so many in the past have failed to cure stammering and stuttering? Why have so many so-called methods of cure passed into the discard? The answer is, they were based on the wrong foundation. They struck at the effects and not at the cause of the trouble. And as a result, the methods failed.
These so-called methods have aimed at many different effects. One method, for instance, had as its theory that if you could cure the nervousness, the stammering would magically disappear. The unfortunate sufferer was doped with vile-tasting bitters and nerve medicines, so-called, in the hope that his nervous system would respond to treatment. But the nerves could not be quieted and the nervous system built up until the cause of the nervousness—which was stammering—was removed.
There was a time, too, and it has not been so long ago, when the craze was on for using surgery as a cure-all for stammering. Terrible butchery was performed in the name of surgery—the patient’s tongue sometimes being slitted or notched, and other foolish and cruel subterfuges improvised in an effort to cure the stammering. Needless to say, there was no cure found in such methods. There is no chance of curing a mental defect by slitting the tongue and the absurdities of that “butchering period” which have now passed away, are numbered among the mistakes of those who committed them.
A lack of thoroughness marked the later attempts to cure stammering. One method was based, for instance, solely upon correct breathing. There is no doubt that correct breathing is very vital both to the stammerer and the nonstammerer, if they are to speak fluently and well. But breath-control does not even begin to solve the problem of curing stammering. It is but an element, and a small element, in the proper articulation of words. And however well this plan of breath-control might have succeeded, it could never have succeeded in really curing stuttering and stammering.
Most of these ill-advised efforts and half-baked methods sprang up, not as a result of sound knowledge but rather as a result of the lack of it. In fact, looking back at the manner in which the stammerer was treated for stammering under these methods, we can see now that nothing but the most profound ignorance of the fundamental principles underlying the art of speaking could have made it possible for these misguided instructors to pass out as science the jargon and hodge-podge which they did try to pass off as scientific knowledge. The absurdities propounded in the name of stammering cures were too numerous even to enumerate in this volume.
SPEECH PRINCIPLES FUNDAMENTAL: Back of every spoken word, whether that word be French, English, Italian, or any other language, are the unchangeable principles of speech. These principles of speech are
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