58 SYSTEMS OF TREATING STAMMERING
(rarely) at the larynx, when the glottis being affected, phona-
tion itself becomes impeded.
"By the continuance of any of these forms of spasm, a spas-
modic habit is acquired, which becoming more or less auto-
matic in course of time, passes more and more from under the
control of the will, and eventually produces confirmed dysialia;
perhaps by the vicious automatism of some nerve-centre not
yet located, which may preside over the coordination of the
movements of speech alone." x
"The most frequent cause of stammering is the imperfect
education or training of the organs of articulation, and a
deficiency in that sympathetic association which ought to sub-
sist between the articulating and vocal organs."2
'Tar more serious than any of the elementary defects hitherto
noticed are those affections of speech which create an impedi-
ment to utterance. These are known by the names of stutter-
ing, stammering, spasmodic hesitation, etc. Their common
characteristic is involuntary action of the organs, which are
not obedient to the will. In stuttering, the articulating organs
— the lips and tongue — rebound again and again before the
equent vowel can find egress." 3
"If the contraction stops at the glottis, only the vowels
d,re hindered; but if it extends, as it usually does, to the lips
and the tongue, the consonants also are affected." 4
"The seat of the former affection, stammering, is chiefly
at the larynx, or the back part of the mouth; the latter, stutter-
1 Potter, "Speech and its Defects," pp. 76-77.
2 Bishop, " On Articulate Sounds; and on the Causes and Cure of
Impediments of Speech," p. 67.
8 Alexander Melville Bell, "The Faults of Speech," 5th ed., p. 9-
4 Thorpe, "Speech-Hesitation," p. 30.
Open Library
