Stammering, Its Cause and Cure - Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue (short books for teens .TXT) 📗
- Author: Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
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The third Unit of Treatment synchronizes and harmonizes mental and physical actions and re-establishes normal coordination between the brain and the muscles of speech, which completes the work necessary to bring about a cure. After both physical and mental conditions have been made normal, it merely remains to link up these two properly-working forces, coordinate their activities and firmly inhabitate the correct principles of control, after which it can be said that a complete cure is permanently effected.
Daily Record of Progress: Beginning with the first day, a complete report in writing is made of the progress. Each point on which the student makes progress is noted. If proper advancement is not made on any particular point, special effort is put forth to bring that point up to the standard which has been set. This makes it possible for the instructor to give individual attention to each student, something which is absolutely essential in many cases. In other words, it will not do to start the student off and let him work out his own salvation. The instructor must be constantly at hand, giving advice, correcting faulty articulation and constantly aiding the stammerer in a hundred ways to route the malady.
After having been under treatment for seven days, the student is subjected to his first treatment test. After passing this examination satisfactorily, the student is assigned additional work from another angle. Some students require as much as ten days to complete the work necessary to pass this first test—in fact, it might also be said that this test will determine the speed with which the student is to progress. From this time until the completion of the course, additional tests are given at various intervals, according to the needs of the case, until the Final Cure Test proves that the malady has been eradicated.
Conscious of the Improvement: The stammerer is profoundly conscious of a distinct change for the better by the end of the very first day under treatment. In other words, there is an immediate and noticeable improvement, not only in his nervous condition, but also in his physical and mental state as well.
Before the student passes from under the treatment, he is thoroughly aware of the benefits which the work has brought about. For, after he has met every progress test and has been examined on every phase and every principle of speech, he passes to a rigid Final Test. In this test, more than ever before, he finds the results of his efforts. He discovers that he can use his speech in any way that he desires—in any way that it will be necessary for him to use it in his future life. He finds himself able to produce any sound—labial, dental, lingual, nasal or palatal or any combination of these sounds in any language. He finds every word now is an easy word, articulation is under perfect control and the formation of voice a process involving no apparent mental effort or physical contortions.
A young woman of 20 years was placed under my care by her mother. She stammered very badly and at the time when her condition was at its worst, found it almost impossible to make herself understood by any means. After five weeks of careful instruction, this young woman had no difficulty whatever in speaking, there was no “piling up of thoughts,” as she expressed her former condition, and her articulation was excellent. A few days after she returned home, she wrote as follows: “I have been talking ever since I came home and have had no trouble whatever. I just love to talk and I believe I have said more in the last five days than in the whole last five years.”
Additional Results: The Bogue Unit Method of Cure when earnestly followed out by the student, does much more than eradicate the impediment of speech. It increases the weight of the below-the- average student, stops all spasmodic or convulsive efforts of face, arms and limbs and increases by several inches what was formerly a flat and poorly developed chest.
A very bad case who came to me for treatment several years ago was a young man of 26. He not only stuttered but stammered very badly. He placed himself under my guidance for a period of a little more than six weeks. At the end of that time he found no difficulty in talking nor were there any spasmodic movements of the facial muscles, as before. In reporting some time later, he said:
“When I left I tipped the scales at 20 pounds heavier than when I went to you. My folks are certainly pleased to hear me talk without the straining and strangling exertion I had before in trying to force my words out. Now they flow out nice and easy.”
Many children, both boys and girls, are under developed. This may have resulted from several causes, but it is frequently traceable to the stammering or stuttering as an indirect cause. The Bogue Unit Method takes these children in a poor physical condition and while eradicating the defect of speech, brings about a healthy physical development. An Ohio woman reported excellent results in a letter which said:
“I am glad to inform you that my son Allan since taking the treatment in June last, has not to my knowledge, stammered once, for which we are all very grateful to the Bogue Method. I also wish to say that his physical condition is much improved and he has increased in weight about ten pounds.”
Regardless of the age of the student, there is an increased vitality flowing through the entire body, the powers of endurance are greatly increased and the health built up from every standpoint. One man sent in an enthusiastic report in these words:
“I am fine and healthy; the people down here say I don’t look like the same person. I gained 17 pounds while I was out there. I am talking fine. My mother says I talk them nearly to death. I talk them all to bed at night, so they put out the light on me so I will go to bed and hush. I went down town Saturday night and the boys were sure glad to hear me talk without stammering.”
Even THIS physical improvement is not unusual.
Another man reports the change brought about in his condition as follows:
“Just about two years ago I was one of the worst stammerers I know that ever was; it was simply awful. I could not speak a word without the most terrible stammering you ever heard. My parents were heartbroken over my condition, which grew worse all the time. I did not grow and develop like my brothers. My shoulders were stooped, my chest sunken—in fact, I was in a terrible condition. After staying with you for six weeks I came home and every one who knew me when I left was simply astonished at the improvement, not in my speech alone, but in my physical condition also. Am stronger and well now and I say it is a comfort to be able to talk like other boys.”
This case is not an unusual one, however, for it is frequently found that the stammering child grows into a physically deficient man as a result of his speech impediment.
Concomitant with these physical betterments comes a changed mental attitude, whereby the former pessimistic outlook has been changed to an optimistic view of life. The former abnormal timidity of the student has been replaced by a perfect confidence; the old unreasoning fear-of-failure is transformed into a feeling of supreme self-reliance; and the depressed, care-worn expression which may once have marked the stammerer’s countenance has given place to that of cheerfulness.
The weak and vacillating will now manifests itself as a dominant, masterful power-of-will and the stagnant mentality of the stammerer has now given place to a vigorous, forceful, creative mental power. The mind-wandering or lack of ability to concentrate is gone and in its place is an intense and well controlled power-of-concentration. In addition to this, the nervousness which marked the every movement of the stammerer has disappeared and the self-consciousness which made life a misery is replaced by a calm self-control, resulting in an entire self-forgetfulness, perfect poise and a feeling of self-possession.
These benefits accrue gradually as the course progresses, but when, upon the completion of the course, perfect speech is finally restored, the results are fully evident and entirely permanent. Their permanency is the crowning result of the proper methods— methods which eradicate the trouble at its source—treat and remove the cause instead of treating the effect.
During the last twenty-eight years, I have personally met more than 22,000 stammerers, diagnosed 97,000 cases by mail and corresponded with more than 210,000 people who stammer or stutter. In this time, it is only natural that I should have come in contact with almost every conceivable type of stammering in practically every form.
I am going to describe a few of these cases in this chapter, give their history and description very briefly, follow out the course of the trouble when unchecked and indicate the circumstances of cure when the stammerer has placed himself for treatment.
I shall make no attempt to discuss all types of speech disorders nor even all of the forms of any one type, but rather to take up those cases which can be regarded as most common and which are typical of the disorders of the largest number of stammerers and stutterers. Since a whole volume could easily be filled with descriptions of cases, it is evident that those discussed here must be but briefly described.
(The case numbers in the following pages refer to specific cases, but not to the order of their treatment, since the classification is a decimal system used to indicate type, duration, stage, etc.)
Case No. 65.435—This was a boy of 8, brought to me by his mother after he had experienced untold trouble in school. The boy complained of a pain in his head when making an effort to talk or after having spoken under the strain for some minutes. I found the spasmodic contractions accompanying his trouble to be very pronounced for a boy so young in years and upon making the examination, was not surprised to find his to be a case of Combined Stammering and Stuttering. There was no indication of Thought-Lapse, but there was a condition that could easily have been mistaken for it—viz.: a woeful lack of confidence in his own ability to speak, which in this boy’s case was due to the fact that he had stuttered almost since his first word and had rarely spoken words correctly. As has been previously explained, every child learns to speak by imitation and his confidence in his speaking-ability must be gained by constant reassurance from some source that he is speaking correctly. Early in life this boy had found that he was NOT speaking correctly and at that moment began to feel the lack of confidence which had been growing upon him daily. Although in the midst of his school work, arrangements were easily made to remove him from class and place him for treatment. Notwithstanding the fact that his trouble was unusually severe for a boy of that age, seven weeks at the Institute saw him made into a new boy, his confidence regained, his speech under perfect control and his physical condition greatly improved.
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