Stammering, Its Cause and Cure Part 3

"Cure myself?" I queried. "How do you expect me, a young man with no scientific training, to cure myself, when the learned doctors, surgeons and scientists of the country hare given me up as incurable?"

"That doesn't make any difference," he replied, "'while there is life, there is hope' and it's a sure thing that n.o.body ever accomplished anything worth while by accepting the failures of others as proof that the thing couldn't be done. Whitney would never have invented the cotton gin if he had accepted the failures of others as final. Columbus picked out a road to America and a.s.sured the skeptics that there was no danger of his sailing 'over the edge.' Of course, it had never been done before, but then Columbus went ahead and did it himself. He didn't take somebody else's failure as an indication of what he could do. If he had, a couple of hundred years later, somebody else would have discovered it and put Columbus in the cla.s.s with the rest of the weak-kneed who said it couldn't BE done, just because IT NEVER HAD BEEN DONE.

"The progress of this country, Ben," continued my cousin, "is founded on the determination of men who refuse to accept the failures of others as proof that things can't be done at all. Now you've got a mighty good start. You've found out all about these other methods--you know that they have failed--and in a lot of cases, you know WHY they have failed.

Now, why don't you begin where they have left off and find out how to succeed?"

The thought struck me like a bolt from a clear sky: "BEGIN WHERE THE OTHERS LEAVE OFF AND FIND OUT HOW TO SUCCEED!" I kept saying it over and over to myself, "Begin where the others leave off--begin where the others leave off!"

This thought put high hope in my heart. It seemed to ring like a call from afar. "Begin where the others leave off and find out how to succeed." I kept thinking about that all the way home. I thought of it at the table that evening. I said nothing. I went to bed--but I didn't go to sleep, for singing through my brain was that sentence, "Begin where the others leave off and find out how to succeed!"

Right then and there I made the resolve that resulted in my curing myself. "I WILL do it," I said, "I will begin where the others leave off--and I WILL SUCCEED!!" Then and there I determined to master the principles of speech, to chart the methods that had been used by others, to find their defects, to locate the cause of stammering, to find out how to remove that cause and remove it from myself, so that I, like the others whom I so envied, could talk freely and fluently.

That resolution--that determination which first fired me that evening never left me. It marked the turning point in my whole life. I was no longer dependent upon others, no longer looking to physicians or elocution teachers or hypnotists to cure me of stammering. I was looking to myself. If I was to be cured, then I must be the one to do it. This responsibility sobered me. It intensified my determination. It emphasized in my own mind the need for persistent effort, for a constant striving toward this one thing. And absorbed with this idea, living and working toward this one end, I began my work.

CHAPTER VIII

BEGINNING WHERE OTHERS HAD LEFT OFF

From the moment that my resolution took shape, my plans were all laid with one thing in mind--to cure myself of stammering. I determined, first of all, to master the principles of speech. I remembered very well, indeed, the admonition of Prof. J. J. Mills, President of Earlham College, on the day I left the inst.i.tution. "You have been a hard-working student," he said, "but your success will never be complete until you learn to talk as others talk. Cure your stammering at any cost." That was the thing I had determined to do. And having determined upon that course, I resolved to let nothing swerve me from it.

I began the study of anatomy. I studied the lungs, the throat, the brain--nothing escaped me. I pursued my studies with the avidity of the medical student wrapped up in his work. I read all the books that had been published on the subject of stammering. I sought eagerly for translations of foreign books on the subject. I lived in the libraries.

I studied late at night and arose early in the morning, that I might be at my work again. It absorbed me. I thought of the subject by day and dreamed of it by night. It was never out of my mind. I was living it, breathing it, eating it. I had not thought myself capable of such concentration as I was putting in on the pursuit of the truth as regards stammering and its cure.

With the knowledge that I had gained from celebrated physicians, specialists and inst.i.tutions throughout this country and Europe, I extended my experiments and investigation. I had an excellent subject on which to experiment--myself. Progress was slow at first--so slow, in fact, that I did not realize until later that it was progress at all.

Nothing but my past misery, backed up by my present determination to be free from the impediment that hampered me at every turn, could have kept me from giving up. But at last, after years of effort, after long nights of study and days of research, I was rewarded by success--I found and perfected a method of control of the articulatory organs as well as of the brain centers controlling the organs of speech. I had learned the cause of stammering and stuttering.

All of the mystery with which the subject had been surrounded by so-called specialists, fell away. In all its clearness, I saw the truth. I saw how the others, who had failed in my case, had failed because of ignorance. I saw that they had been treating effects, not causes. I saw exactly WHY their methods had not succeeded and could never succeed.

In truth I had BEGUN WHERE THE OTHERS LEFT OFF AND WON SUCCESS. The reader can imagine what this meant to me. It meant that at last I could speak--clearly, distinctly, freely, and fluently, without those facial contortions that had made me an object of ridicule wherever I went. It meant that I could take my place in life, a man among men; that I could look the whole world in the face; that I could live and enjoy life as other normal persons lived and enjoyed it.

At first my friends could not believe that my cure was permanent. Even my mother doubted the evidence of her own ears. But I knew the trouble would not come back, for the old fear was gone, the nervousness soon pa.s.sed away, and a new feeling of confidence and self-reliance took hold of me, with the result that in a few weeks I was a changed man.

People who had formerly avoided me because of my infirmity began to greet me with new interest. Gradually the old affliction was forgotten by those with whom I came into daily contact and by many I was thought of as a man who had never stammered. Even today, those who knew me when I stammered so badly I could hardly talk, are hardly able to believe that I am the same person who used to be known as "BEN BOGUE'S BOY WHO STUTTERS."

For today I can talk as freely and fluently as anybody. I do not hesitate in the least. For years, I have not even known what it is to grope mentally for a word. I speak in public as well as in private conversation. I have no difficulty in talking over the telephone and in fact do not know the difference. In my work, I lecture to students and am invited to address scientific bodies, societies and educational gatherings, all of which I can accomplish without the slightest difficulty.

Today, I can say with Terence, "I am a man and nothing that is human is alien to me." And I can go a step further and say to those who are afflicted as I was afflicted: "I have been a stammerer. I know your troubles, your sorrows, your discouragements. I understand with an understanding born of a costly experience."

Man or woman, boy or girl, wherever you are, my heart goes out to you.

Whatever your station in life, rich or poor, educated or unlettered, discouraged and hopeless, or determined and resolute, I send you a message of hope, a message which, in the words of Dr. Russell R.

Conwell, "has been affirmed and reaffirmed in the thousands of lives I have been privileged to watch. And the message is this: Neither heredity nor environment nor any obstacles superimposed by man can keep you from marching straight through to a cure, provided you are guided by a firm driving determination and have normal health and intelligence." To that end I commend to you the succeeding pages of this volume, where you will find in plain and simple language the things which I have spent more than thirty years in learning. May these pages open for you the door to freedom of speech--as they have opened it for hundreds before you.

PART II

STAMMERING AND STUTTERING

The Causes, Peculiarities, Tendencies and Effects

CHAPTER I

SPEECH DISORDERS DEFINED

In the diagnosis of speech disorders, there are almost as many different forms of defective utterance as there are cases, all of which forms, however, divide themselves into a few basic types. These various disorders might be broadly cla.s.sified into three cla.s.ses:

(1)--Those resulting from carelessness in learning to speak; (2)--Those which are of distinct mental form; and (3)--Those caused by a physical deformity in the organs of speech themselves.

Regardless of under which of these three heads a speech disorder may come, it is commonly spoken of by the laymen as a "speech impediment"

or "a stoppage in speech" notwithstanding the fact that the characteristics of the various disorders are quite dissimilar. In certain of the disorders,

(a)--There is an inability to release a word; in others, (b)--A tendency to repeat a syllable several times before the following syllable can be uttered; in others, (c)--The tendency to subst.i.tute an incorrect sound for the correct one; while in others, (d)--The utterance is defective merely in the imperfect enunciation of sounds and syllables due to some organic defect, or to carelessness in learning to speak.

While this volume has but little to do with speech disorders other than stammering and stuttering, the characteristics of the more common forms of speech impediment--lisping, cluttering and hesitation, as well as stuttering and stammering--will be discussed in this first chapter, in order that the reader may be able, in a general way at least, to differentiate between the various disorders.

LISPING

This is a very common form of speech disorder and one which manifests itself early in the life of the child. Lisping may be divided into three forms:

(1)--Negligent Lisping (2)--Neurotic Lisping (3)--Organic Lisping

NEGLIGENT LISPING: This is a form of defective enunciation caused in most cases by parental neglect or the carelessness of the child himself in the p.r.o.nunciation of words during the first few months of talking.

This defective p.r.o.nunciation in Negligent Lisping is caused either by a FAILURE or an INABILITY to observe others who speak correctly. We learn to speak by imitation, and failing to observe the correct method of speaking in others, we naturally fail to speak correctly ourselves. In Negligent Lisping, this inability properly to imitate correct speech processes, results in the subst.i.tution of an incorrect sound for the correct one with consequent faulty formation of words.

ORGANIC LISPING: This results from an organic or physical defect in the vocal organs, such as hare-lip, feeble lip, malformation of the tongue, defective teeth, overshot or undershot jaw, high palatal arch, cleft palate, defective palate, relaxed palate following an operation for adenoids, obstructed nasal pa.s.sages or defective hearing.

NEUROTIC LISPING: This is a form of speech marked by short, rapid muscular contractions instead of the smooth and easy action used in producing normal sounds. Neurotic Lisping is often found to be combined with stammering or stuttering, which is quite logical, since it is similar, both as to CAUSE and as to the presence of a MENTAL DISTURBANCE. In Neurotic Lisping, the muscular movements are less spasmodic than in cases of stuttering, partaking more of the cramped sticking movement, common in stammering.

STUTTERING

Stuttering may be generally defined as the repet.i.tion--rapid in some cases, slow in others--of a word or a syllable, before the following word or syllable can be uttered. Stuttering may take several forms, any one of which will fall into one of four phases:

(1)--Simple Phase (2)--Advanced Phase (3)--Mental Phase (4)--Compound Phase

Simple stuttering can be said to be a purely physical form of the difficulty. The Advanced Phase marks the stage of further progress where the trouble pa.s.ses from the purely physical state into a condition that may be known as Mental-Physical. The distinctly Mental Phase is marked by symptoms indicating a mental cause for the trouble, the disorder usually having pa.s.sed into this form from the simple or advanced stages of the malady. Stuttering may be combined with stammering in which case the condition represents the Compound Phase of the trouble.

Ch.o.r.eATIC STUTTERING: This originates in an attack of Acute Ch.o.r.ea or St. Vitus Dance, which leaves the sufferer in a condition where involuntary and spasmodic muscular contractions, especially of the face, have become an established habit. This breaks up the speech in a manner somewhat similar to ordinary stuttering. Also known as "Tic Speech."

SPASTIC SPEECH: This is often the result of infantile cerebral palsy, the characteristic symptom of the trouble being intense over-exertion, continued throughout a sentence, the syllables being equal in length and very laboriously enunciated. In spastic speech, there is present a noticeable hyper-tonicity of the nerve fibers actuating the muscles used in speaking as well as marked contractions of the facial muscles.