Stammering, its cause and cureBogue, Benjamin Nathaniel
Science
Stammering, its cause and cure
Bogue, Benjamin Nathaniel
Stuttering
Another of the peculiarities of stammering is that the stammerer in
many cases seems to be able to talk perfectly in concert. This has long
baffled the investigator in this field, no reason being assignable for
this ability to talk in connection with others. The baffling element
has been this--that the investigator has assumed that the stammerer
talked well in concert, whereas a very careful scientist would have
discovered the stammerer to be a fraction of a second or a part of a
syllable behind the others.
You have doubtless been in church at some time when you were not
entirely familiar with the hymn being sung, yet by lagging a note or
two behind the rest, you could sing the song, to all appearances being
right along with the others.
When you talk over the long-distance telephone, the voice seems
instantly to reach the party at the other end of the line, yet we know
that a period of time has had to elapse to allow the voice waves to
move along the telephone wire and reach the other end. The elapse of
time has been too slight to be noted by the average human mind and the
transmission seems instantaneous. This is what happens in the case of
the stammerer who seems able to talk in concert--he is merely a
syllable or part of a syllable behind the rest, all the while giving
the impression nevertheless, that he is talking just as they are.
There are many other individual peculiarities which can be described by
almost every stammerer. These different peculiarities are more numerous
than the cases of stammering and it would be useless to attempt to
discuss them in detail. I will take up only two as being typical of
dozens which have come under my observation in twenty-eight years'
experience.
One stammerer explains his difficulty as follows: "I find I am unable
to talk and do something else at the same time. For instance, I have
difficulty in talking while dancing, while at the table or while
listening to music. If, for instance, I wish to talk to any one while
the Victrola is being played, I unconsciously cut it off." This is a
case where the stammerer finds that all of his faculties must be
concentrated upon a supreme effort to speak before this becomes
possible. In other words, he has not yet learned to control
sufficiently the different parts of his body so that they may act
independently. This might be termed a lack of independent co-ordination.
In the case of another young man, he found himself unable to control
the movements of his muscles. In describing his trouble, he said: "At
one time, when I was talking particularly bad, I was out with some
other fellows driving our car. I started to talk, found it almost
impossible and noticed a sharp twitching of the muscles of face, arms
and limbs. Try as I might, I found I could not control these movements
and in another minute I had steered the car into the ditch and wrecked
it. And now," adds the young man, "although father has a new car, I am
never allowed to drive it!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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