Stammering, its cause and cure

by Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

The third Unit of Treatment synchronizes and harmonizes mental and physical actions and re-establishes normal co-ordination 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, co-ordinate 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: