The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1886-08-24
NEGLECT OF SPEECH.
Ths Various Causes Assigned for Stammsr-
ing I'm Young and Old.

ing in Young And Old.
Every parent whose child exhibits q
tendency to stammer In speech should
realize how great a misfortune and de-
feet is impending over the child if the
tendency grows into q habit, and
should use all possible endeayor to
avert or to subdue it. For not only
does the stammerer suffer annoyance,
nervous irritation, shame and innu-
merable Inconvenience, but every one
who endeavors to converse with him
endares the same nervous irritation,
and an embarrassment besides which
Aeauses a desire not TO encounter him
in the future, fortunate if not feeling
the most singular temptation to go
through the same grimaces and pro-
duce the same sounds, which if held in
check by politeness or kindness is
often held so by an effort, dangerous in
the same direction as yielding might
prove to the tempted, sometimes pro-
ducing an incerable stammer of its
own
There are various causes assigned
for stammering, none of which operate
In al cases. In some children it is
produced by organic trouble, malfor-
matien of the tongue or of the throat
or palate, swollen tonsils, a heightened
uvula or Inflammation of the glands.
Early attention must be given TO this,
the uvula clipped, the tonsils reduced,
ulcers cauterized, as the particular
case requires. Quite as often, how
Seyer, the trouble is not organic. but
functional, and arises from debility,
paralysis, tetanic spasms, neuralgia,
chorea and other nervous disturbances.
This form is almost always durable, with
pains and time and patience-patience,
after all. being the great panacea. Oc-
casiOnally this sort of stammering has
birth IN a chance imitation or mOckery
of another stammerer, sometimes from
a confusion of the mind that binders
control of the organs of speech, or a
weakness of the will in relation to
them; again from some unhappy ex-
citement, pleasurable excitement sell
dom retarding the speech. And the
act of stammering once accidentally
committed, the nervous consciousness
of it renders it almost impossible TO
regain a normal use of the vocal or
gans. That no stammering, however
is entirely and altogether nervous is
shown by the fact that the worst STAN
merer can sing without showing it,
and with thorough articulation, and by
Che further fact that women, who are
r notOriously more nervous than men,
form but tenth part fall the stammer'
ers in the world.
The trouble with stammerers usually
evinces itself In words which begin
with consonantS, those especially which
require a pressure of the tongue upon
the roof of the mouth, and when the
trouble is not organic, this can almost
ALWAYS be corrected by calling upon
the intelligence, and by slow practice,
and We repeat, by patience. No sign
of vexation or fsult-finding should ever
be allowed to confuse the child's men,
tai processes while under discipline for
the trouble, and if quite young, he may
thus be coaxed out of it almost without
knowing it. The child should be taught
by touch, by example, by plates, if suf-
ficiently old or bright for them, the use
Aand management of the throat, the vo-
pal chords, the tongue and teeth and
lips, IN speaking, and he should be
shown how to speak from the throat
and not from the mouth, TO speak
SLOWLY, and made to think before
speaking. If not old enough for in
structiOn of the more advanced
sort, then he should be expected to re-
peat slowly after a kind and gentle
voice sentences where the obnoxious
sounds slip in unobserved. The best
course always il to resort to an expe-
rienced teacher, in whose methods
knowledge is equalled only by pa.
thence.
If q child's eyes are crossed, recourse
is had to an oculist; if there is trouble
of the ears, to an aurist; if his lip is
cleft, If his limbs are twisted, if his
back is deformed, to a surgeon. Yet
: but few things with which he can be
afflicted will give much more vexation,
annoy ance, teasing tremor and NORTH
cation than the habit. of stammering,
if it grows up with him and gets pos
session of him till he feels it like one
of the evil spirits in those possessed of
devils, and the parent VINO fails TO
mount TO the occasion, and thinks it
no matter now, that il is rather pretty
and amusing in child, who delays
about taking advice, can not afford
teacher in such a trife, can not 90
where teachers are, or for any other
reason whatever neglects to attend to
the business before the child is ten
year, old, and to follow it up with the
patience of Mother Nature herself for
every day of two years, deserves all
the reprosch with which, in years to
come. tine child will load him in his
heart if not in mis- stammering speech.
Whatever position the child msy grow
TO fill, there he will need his speech:
WITHOUT it the orator will be ruined,
the lawyer can not plead, the exhorter
can not preach, the teacher can not in
struct, the auctioneer has no vocation,
the actor can not play, the master can