Stamering And Cognate Defects Of Speech Vol - Ii

igo SYSTEMS OF TREATING STAMMERING

A third writer disagrees:

"The tongue should never, in speech, be protruded between
the teeth; it should never touch the lower teeth; it should never
be pointed downwards to the bed of the jaw; it should never
be thrust up in the palatal arch, as in the act of sucking; nor
should the point of the tongue in any action deviate from the
centre of the mouth."

Here the stammerer has quite a choice of expedients.
However, he would doubtless do well to ignore them
all, and pay no particular attention to lingual position.

It is remarkable that such an expedient as the
"Leigh, method" should ever have received serious
consideration. The method is a procedure without
a purpose. Dr. Mtiller justly characterized it (shortly
after it was introduced) as "a blind groping in the
dark, in which neither teacher nor pupil knows what
he is about." l The whole thing is so utterly aim-
less that one cannot even undertake a systematic
criticism. Malebouche, who seems to have paid more
attention to labial action than lingual position,
himself admits that any number of people (une
infinite de personnes) carry the tongue in a low posi-
tion, but do not stammer.2 He further states that
with stammerers "this difficulty in carrying the
tongue to the palate does not exist: they can carry
the tongue there whenever they will." 8

1 "Handbuch der Physiologic," Vol. II, p. 243.

2 "Precis sur les causes du bggaiement," p. n. 8 Loc. tit., p. 15.

I