STAMMERING

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 57, Issue 3982, 16 April 1948, Page 3

STAMMERING

OFTEN BEGINS WITH FEAR VOWEDS HAVE TO BE WATCHED (By the Department of Health) In a recent survey of speech defects in our children at school six in each thousand examined had a speech defect of one kind or another. Stammerers amounted to over one per thousand, actually 13 in each 10,000 children examined. The pity of it is that much of the stammering in adults could have been avoided by care in infancy.

The second and third toddler years are important, for clear, slow speech from the parents help the child over the stumbling stage. When the stumbling gets fixed into a stammer it is either a fear complex or a mechanical fault from speed. If people in the home speak too quickly, the child copies, trips over words and is puzzled by it—and frightened when he can’t get the words out properly. Fear is never far away from the child. When the word recurs and the stumbling again, he remembets, he becomes fearful over that word. He tries all the harder then and concentrates on getting out the consonants, repeats them, bringing in face and neck muscles to help out, and neglecting the vowel sound. A stammerer is made.

Treatment of a stammerer is to reverse this business to get him to forget his consonants and think about his vowels and their sound. A stammerer can usually speak fluently with something in his mouth,' because this alters his vowel sounds and gives new tones to work on. He can usually sing clearly because here his attention is on vowel sounds and tone and the timing is guided by the music. What he does in singing he has to learn for speech.

He needs to alter his vowel values to give himself a chance to put his new speech over without stumbling. He will need the help and encouragement of somebody trained in overcoming speech defects. Counting so many before speaking is no good. Taking a deep breath before speaking is hopeless. These and similar tricks will never cure stammering. The stammerer has to start speech all over again, and it’s best to do this at a speech clinic under the guidance of a trained speech therapist.