ting the effect.

CHAPTER VIII

SOME CASES I HAVE MET

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,