Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1892 — The Nature and Treatment of Stammering. [ARTICLE]

The Nature and Treatment of Stammering.

Emil Behnke (Jour. Laryngology and Rhinology) has recently declared that the term stammer and stutter should indicate the same condition, rejecting a former distinction that slammer should refer to that form of obstruction in which there is inability to pronounce vowels, and stuttering to that form of impediment in which the consonants are «at fault. The causes of these disturbances are attributable to the nervous centers controlling the mechanism of respiration, phonation and articulation. Children afflicted with stammering do, not, as a rule, outgrow the habit; ridicule or severity will increase the disConditions needing surgical or medTcal interference, such as spinal curvature, post-natal adenoids, decayed teeth, intestinal worms and phimosis, may prevent cure of stammering until their removal. Cases of stammerers are divided into two classes—those in which fault lies in management of respiratory apparatus, and those in which it does not. In the former the prognosis is more hopeful. To test patient, he is placed flat on his back upon a couch, and is drilled in methodized and graduated Series of sounds and inspiration produced by diaphragm and muscles of abdominal walls, the hand of the trainer upon the epigastrium accentuating these movements. If, after such practice, the patient shows improvement, a favorable result may be expected from treatment. In those cases in which obstruction does not depend upon imperfect respiration, Behnke attributes much of the trouble to “an involuntary exaggeration of all the stops and checks taking place in the vocal apparatus from glottis to lips, and he must therefore he trained to make these closures as shortly and lightly as possible.” Thus a short aspirate maybe inserted after a consonant; as G-h-eorge,, instead of George, or, as patient would say, G-g-g-eorge; and p-h-a, instead of pa. Stammerers sing and whisper without difficulty, because in singing there is almost continued tone, and in whispering there is absence of tone. It is advisable to dwell on vowels at expense of consonants —and if vowel is difficult to sound, it should be preceded by a short inspiration. Another beneficial exercise is to speak slowly, with teeth overlapping and pressed tightly together. Result of treatment influenced by severity of case, intelligence of patient, also existing morbid conditions, especially those due to chorea or other nervous disturbances.