Children who can not yet speak of themselves but can repeat what is said for them, exert themselves unnecessarily, making a strong expiratory effort (with the help of abdominal pressure) to repeat a syllable still unfamiliar, and they pause between the doubled or tripled consonant and vowel. This peculiarity, which soon passes away and is to be traced often to the lack of practice and to embarrassment (in case of threats), and which may be observed occasionally in every child, is stuttering proper, although it appears more seldom than in stutterers. Example: The child of two years is to say "Tischdecke," and he begins with an unnecessary expiratory effort, T-t-itt-t, and does not finish.
Stuttering is by no means a physiological transition-stage through which every child learning to speak must necessarily pass. But it is easily acquired, in learning to speak, by imitation of stutterers, in frequent intercourse with them. Hence, stutterers have sometimes stuttering children.
β. Stumbling at Syllables.—Children that already articulate correctly separate sounds, and do so intentionally, very often put together syllables out of the sounds incorrectly, and frame words incorrectly from the syllables, where we can not assume deficient development of the external organs of speech; this is solely because the co-ordination is still imperfect. The child accordingly says beti before he can say bitte; so too grefessen instead of gefressen.
The tracts l and n are still incompletely developed; also S and W, so far as impulses come thence to utter syllables by means of M.
b. Paraphasia.—Children have learned some expressions in their future language, and use them independently but wrongly; they put in the place of the appropriate word an incorrect one, confounding words because they can not yet correctly combine their ideas with the word-images. They say, e. g., Kind instead of "Kinn," and Sand instead of "Salz"; also Netz for "Nest" and Billard for "Billet," Matrone for "Patrone."
The connection of D with M through n is still imperfect, and perhaps also M is not sufficiently developed.
Making Mistakes in Speaking (Skoliophasia).—In this kind of paraphasia in adults the cause is a lack of attention; therefore purely central concentration is wanting, or one fails to "collect himself"; there is distraction, hence the unintentional, frequently unconscious, confounding of words similar in sound or connected merely by remote, often dim, reminiscences. This kind of mis-speaking through carelessness is distinguished from skoliophrasia (see below) by the fact that there is no disturbance of the intelligence, and the correction easily follows.
Skoliophasia occurs regularly with children in the second and third years (and later). The child in general has not yet the ability to concentrate his attention upon that which is to be spoken. He wills to do it but can not yet. Hence, even in spite of the greatest effort, occur often erroneous repetitions of words pronounced for him (aside from difficulties of articulation, and also when these are wanting); hence confounding (of words), wrong forms of address, e. g., Mama or Helene instead of "Papa," and Papa instead of "Marie."
c. Taciturnity (Dumbness).—Individual human beings of sound physical condition who can speak very well are dumb, or speak only two or three words in all for several years, because they no longer will to speak (e. g., in the belief that silence prevents them from doing wrong).
This taciturnity is not to be confounded with the paranoic aphrasia in certain insane persons—e. g., in catatonia, where the will is paralyzed.