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 classified into three classes:
(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,