Stammering, Its Cause and Cure by Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue (microsoft ebook reader txt) 📕
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1—Simple Phase 2—Advanced Phase 3—Mental Phase 4—Compound Phase
The progress of the disorder is sure. Take the case of a child eight years of age who has a case of simple stuttering. Permit the child to go without attention for some time and the trouble will have progressed into the Advanced Phase, usually without the knowledge of the child or his parents or without any especially noticeable surface change in his condition.
Stuttering in its first phase—Simple Stuttering—can justly be called a physical and not a mental trouble. In this stage, the disorder should be easily eradicated. The duration of cases of Simple Stuttering is very slight, for the reason that Simple Stuttering soon passes into the Advanced Phase, which is of a physical-mental nature, exhibiting the symptoms of a mental disturbance as well as of a physical difficulty.
From the Advanced Phase stuttering then passes into the Mental Phase, where the mental strain is found to be greatly intensified and the disorder a distinct mental type instead of a physical or physical-mental trouble.
When stuttering in this stage is permitted to continue its hold upon the sufferer, the continued strain, worry and fear bring about a condition of extraordinary malignancy, in which the trouble develops into the Chronic Mental Stage. This is a condition bordering upon mental breakdown and even though the complete breakdown never occurs, the one afflicted finds himself a chronic stutterer, without surcease from his trouble. He further finds that he has increasing difficulty in thinking of the things which he wishes to say. He seems to know, but his mind refuses to frame the thought. In other words, he is unable to recall the mental image of the word in mind, and is therefore unable to speak the word. This is a condition known as Aphasia or Thought Lapse and represents a most serious stage of the difficulty, in many cases totally beyond the possibility of relief—a condition in which no stutterer should allow himself to get.
Stammering, being a kindred condition to stuttering, progresses from bad to worse in a manner very similar. The progress of stammering may be classified into successive stages as follows:
1—Elementary Stage 2—Spasmodic Stage 3—Primary Mental Stage 4—Chronic Mental Stage 5—Compound Stage
Stammering in the Elementary Stage, like Stuttering, is a Physical Trouble. The Stammerer has often been known to remain in the Elementary Stage only a few days or a few weeks, passing almost immediately into either the Spasmodic or the Primary Mental Stage. Not all stammerers pass into the Spasmodic Stage of the disorder, however, some passing directly into Primary Mental Stage.
The Spasmodic Stage, however, is a form of difficulty somewhat akin to the Advanced Phase of Stuttering, for in this stage the trouble can be said to be of Physical-Mental nature instead of the purely physical disorder found in Elementary Stammering.
Stammering, in the Primary Mental Stage, takes on a distinct Mental form as differentiated from the Mental-Physical form and becomes therefore more difficult to eradicate. If allowed to continue, this form of Stammering (like Stuttering) passes into the Chronic Mental Stage, in which case the Stammerer usually exhibits pronounced signs of Thought Lapse and finds himself a Chronic or Constant Stammerer, often unable to utter a sound-and further at times unable to THINK of what he wishes to say.
The progress of both Stuttering and Stammering from one stage to another is very certain. These speech disorders do not differ materially from other human afflictions in this respect—they do not remain constant. There is an axiom in Nature, that “Nothing is static,” which, being interpreted, means, that nothing stands still. And this applies with full force to the stutterer or stammerer. If no steps are taken to remedy the malady, he may be very sure that the disorder is getting worse—not standing still or remaining the same.
Probably the most harmful and oft-repeated bit of advice ever given to a stammerer or stutterer is that which says, “Oh, don’t bother about it—you will soon outgrow the trouble!” It is the most harmful because it is palpably untrue. It is so oft-repeated because the person giving the advice knows nothing whatever about the cause of stammering and just as little about its progress or treatment.
The fact that we hear of no cases of stuttering or stammering which have been outgrown does not seem to alter the popular and totally unfounded belief that stammering and stuttering can be readily outgrown.
If the reader has not read the chapter on the causes of stuttering and stammering and the two preceding chapters on the Intermittent Tendency and the Progressive Character of these speech disorders, then these chapters should be read carefully before going further with this one, because it is essential to know the cause of the trouble before it is possible to answer intelligently the question, “Can Stammering be Outgrown?”
To any one who understands the nature of the difficulty and the progress it is liable to make, the question is almost as absurd as asking whether or not the desire to sleep can be outgrown by staying awake. But aside from its scientific aspect—aside from the absurdity of the question—let us examine the facts as revealed by actual records of cases. Let us dispense with all theory on the subject and take experience gained in a wide range of cases as the correct guide in finding the answer.
FACTS FROM STATISTICS: An examination of the records of several thousand cases of stuttering and stammering of all types and in all stages of development reveals the fact that after passing the age of six, only one-fifth of one per cent, ever outgrow stammering. This means that out of every five hundred people who stammer, only one ever outgrows it. Between the ages of three and six, the indications are more favorable, the records in these cases showing that slightly less than one per cent, outgrow the difficulty. That means that one out of every hundred children affected has a chance, at least, of outgrowing the difficulty between the ages of three and six, and after that time, only one chance in five hundred.
Suppose you were handed a rifle, given five hundred cartridges and told to hit a bull’s eye at a hundred yards, 499 times out of 500. Suppose you were told that if you missed once you would have to suffer the rest of your life as a stammerer.
Would you take the offer? Certainly not!!!
And yet that is exactly the opportunity that a stammerer over six years of age has to outgrow his trouble.
Dr. Leonard Keene Hirschberg, the medical writer, whose suggestions appear daily in a large list of newspapers, has this to say about the possibility of outgrowing stammering:
“Often when the attention of careless and reckless fatalistic relatives is attracted to a child’s stammering, they labor under the mistaken illusion that the child ‘will outgrow it.’ A more harmful doctrine has never been perpetuated than the one contained in that stock phrase. As a matter of experience, speech troubles are not ‘outgrown.’ They become ‘ingrown.’ If not corrected at first they go from bad to worse. So firmly rooted and ingrained into the child’s habits does stuttering become that with every hour’s growth the chance for a cure becomes farther and farther removed.”
This statement from Dr. Hirschberg is a straight-forward, practical and common-sense view of the subject.
The belief that the child will outgrow the malady often springs out of the tendency of the stammerer to be better and worse by turns, a condition which is fully described and explained in the chapter on the Intermittent Tendency. There is always present in any case of stammering the opportunity for a cessation of the trouble for a short period of time. The visible condition is changeable and it is this particular aspect of the disorder that renders it deceptive and dangerous, for many, who find themselves talking fairly well for a short period, believe that they are on the road to relief, whereas they are simply in a position where their trouble is about to return upon them in greater force than ever.
From the nature of the impediment—lack of coordination between the brain and the organs of speech—stammering cannot be outgrown —no more so than the desire to eat or to talk or to sleep.
Back of that statement, there is a very sound scientific reason that explains why stammering cannot be outgrown. Stammering is destructive. It tears down but cannot build up. Every time the stammerer attempts to speak and fails, the failure tears out a certain amount of his power-of-will. And since it is impossible for him to speak fluently except on rare occasions, this loss of will-power and confidence takes place every time he attempts to speak, so that with each successive failure, his power to speak correctly becomes steadily lessened. The case of a stammerer might be compared to a road in which a deep rut has been worn. Each time a wagon passes through this rut, it becomes deeper. The stammerer has no more chance of outgrowing his trouble than the road has of outgrowing the rut.
Dr. Alexander Melville Bell recognizes the absolute certainty of the progress of stammering and the impossibility of outgrowing the difficulty, when he states in his work, PRINCIPLES OF SPEECH (page
234):
“If the stammerer or stutterer were brought under treatment before the spasmodic habit became established, his cure would be much easier than after the malady has become rooted in his muscular and nervous system.”
To the stammerer or stutterer or the parents of a stammering child, experience brings no truer lesson than this: Stammering cannot be outgrown; danger lurks behind delay.
It is hardly necessary to describe to the stammerer who has passed beyond the first stage of his trouble the effect of stammering on the mind. Most any sufferer in the second or third stages of the malady has experienced for very brief periods the sensation of thoughts slipping away from him and of pursuing or attempting to pursue those thoughts for some seconds without success, finally to find them returning like a flash.
The stammerer who recalls such an incident will remember the feelings of lassitude or momentary physical exhaustion, as well as the feeling of weakness which followed the lapse-of-thought. This mental flurry is but an indication of a mental condition known as Thought-Lapse, which may result from long-continued stammering, especially a case which has been allowed to progress into the Chronic or Advanced Stage.
A CASE OF APHASIA: One writer, in citing instances of thought-lapse, or aphasia, tells of the case of a man unable to recall the name of any object until it was repeated for him. A knife, for instance, placed on the table before him, brought no mental image of the word representing the object, yet if the word “knife” were spoken for him, he would immediately say, “Oh, yes, it is a knife.”
A chapter could be filled with instances of this sort, but I shall not attempt to quote further any of the symptoms of aphasia in a stammerer, for in cases that become so far advanced, there is considerable question as to the possibility of bringing about a cure. I say this, notwithstanding the fact that my experience with students having this tendency has been very satisfactory indeed.
Cases of unreasoning despondency, which result in the stammerer’s desire to take his own life, are so numerous as hardly to require comment. Very frequently you see in some of the large metropolitan papers an account of a suicide resulting from a nervous and mental condition brought on by stuttering and stammering. This condition seems
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