Abnormal Speech
- Author:
Boome, M.B.,
Principal Assistant Medical Officer, London County Council, H. M. S. Baines and D. G. Harries, Speech Therapists for Day Centres and Mental Hospitals, L.C.C. Methuen & Co. Ltd., 6/-.
This book should be of invaluable assistance to speech therapists, to parents with children suffering from defective speech, arid indeed to anyone whose work is connected with the remedial side of speech training. The information and exercises are given clearly and concisely, and as a glossary of technical terms is included, the lay reader can derive as much benefit from the book as the reader who has had a professional training in Speech Therapy.
The first chapter is devoted to the tracing of the normal development of speech, from the first stage of childish babbling to the stage when normal speech is produced. This subject is touched upon again in chapter VIII in which the authors comment on the difficulties which have to be overcome by the class teacher of an Infants’ Department in an elementary school, not only in training children to speak intelligibly but also in the production of a pleasant tone of voice. In Chapter I, which deals with functional and organic disorders of speech, such as Lalling and Lisping, the statement that a lisper has ‘usually a constitutional dislike of accuracy in any movement” (page 15) seems to be somewhat exaggerated, nor can one agree that Dyslalia is an acute form of lisping (page 17). The pages dealing with Aphasia (18 to 21) and the different forms of deafness (23 and 24) are particularly useful and should be of value to the class teacher as these disorders are not recognised as readily as stammering or lisping, and children suffering from a mild form of aphasis or deafness can be severely handicapped, particularly in their school work. In Chapter III, the authors give a series of exercises for the treatment of speech disorders. Many excellent suggestions are made here, and in Chapter V these are followed up by more detailed exercises, including those suitable for general speech training, such as the ” tongue twister” sentence. This chapter deals also with psychogenic disorders, and some sound advice is given on the correct treatment of stammerers, advice which can be followed by the patient himself if an adult, or by his parents if a child.
Chapter VI describes the speech of the mental defective and some of the defects peculiar to children suffering from mental deficiency, and also gives suggestions for remedying them. These suggestions are amplified in Chapter VII, which contains a concise account of the traits and characteristics of the ” difficult ” child.
The Appendix supplies some interesting notes of practical value, particularly the pages on ” Child Development” and the ” Relation between Defective Speech and Disability in Spelling,” a subject on which still more research might usefully be carried out.
This book fulfils a long-felt want and can be highly recommended as an indispensable text-book for students, teachers, speech therapists, and all who are interested in the study of speech. K. E. J.
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