Speech Defects in School Children and How to Treat Them
REVIEWS AND CRITICISM. :Author: Walter Babcock Swift, A.B., S.B., M.D. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1918. Pp. 129.
Even if the reader did not know of Dr Swift’s excursion into the field of corrective speech work, the mere fact that this volume appears in the Riverside Educational Monograph Series, and more particularly the editor’s introductory comments, would at once raise the hope that at last the teacher is to be put in possession of simple and effective methods for the correction of common speech defects. The editor experiences “a great sense of relief” in saving “the more conscientious of teachers the baffling task of trying to collect essential wisdom from scattered medical and pedagogical treatises upon this subject,” presumably by offering this book for their purchase. He continues, “It is with a confident sense of service that we present an invaluable work by the eminent medical specialist with experienced insight into pedagogical ways and means. So much practical information on speech correction has never before been made accessible to teachers in such handy form.” With this unqualified endorsement in mind, it is with a sense of great expectation that we approach the body of the text.
The first chapter is entitled “Importance of Good Habits of Speech,” and is a brief statement of the facts well known to all school-teachers, namely, that some defects of speech in children become permanent defects, that social success depends upon correct speech habits, that bad habits of speech impede education, etc. We experience no reaction in reading this chapter except when baby-talk is defined as “simply the persistence in the grown person of a number of phonetic defects that the mother has implanted in her children by talking baby-talk to them.” The clinical psychologist has heaped many sins of omission and commission on the head of the long-suffering mother, but until the publication” of this book she has been spared this ignominy. In reviewing the clinical histories of a large number of cases with complete recovery, not a single instance is found where the mother is clearly responsible for the defect.
Chapter two is entitled “Methods for Correcting Defective Speech.” The more important section of this chapter deals with the treatment of stuttering. The three steps are as follows: (1) Begin with a series of breathing exercises; (2) the holding of a note with the voice to develop the power of concentration, which is an introduction to the really important process, (3), that of holding a visual image in the mind during utterance. The importance of visualization is stressed throughout the book. The author explains: “Several normal individuals were tested with a list of some fifteen hundred questions to ascertain the conscious content of their minds during utterance. This conscious content was found to be a visual image. Then a similar series of stutterers was put through the same experiment and it was found that they constantly lacked this visual image while they were stuttering. Upon this research finding is based our treatment, which, in a word, consists in very gradually developing first meager and then larger and then very extensive visualization processes over the speech of the stutterer and so giving him that apparently essential faculty which is found constantly present over the speech of the normal individual.” Thus visualization is the essential faculty which is found constantly present over the speech of the normal individual. We are at once led to inquire by what unusual processes the congenitally blind acquire articulate language. We can understand how the afflicted child may be asked to visualize “Mary,” “little lamb,” “spreading chestnut tree.” But if he happens to stutter on “time,” “glorious,” “How I wonder what you are,” is he to be sent to the home for incurables? It is very apparent that Dr Swift has failed in his understanding of the origin and genesis of speech. He would otherwise have at least mentioned the kinesthetic elements indispensible in such functions, and recognized as far back as the epoch-making discovery of Broca.
The precise procedure outlined by the author is as follows: Position. Correct standing position. Exercise 1. Take a deep breath slowly and exhale as slowly as possible. Exercise 2. Same as Exercise 1, but on exhalation sound the syllable ” Ma,” keeping it of even volume and intensity and prolonging the utterance as much as possible. Exercise 3. Same as Exercise 2, but instead of prolonging the “Ma” on an even pitch, sing the scale with “Ma.” Exercise 4. Same as Exercise 3, except that “Ma” is sounded on low C, high C, and low C again prolonged as before. Exercise 5. The word “Mother” is now uttered. Word Exercise. The patient is asked to apply the octave exercise to every word of ” Mary had a little lamb,” etc. Line Exercise. Jump the octave on the first word of a line, and then let the voice run down the octave through all the succeeding words of that line until the note from which he started is reached. Use “Twinkle, twinkle, little star,” etc. Then rise through the octave from the beginning to the middle of the line and then let the voice fall gradually to the end of the line. Use “When the glorious sun is set,” etc. Build up in the mind of a patient clear visual images using “Under the spreading chestnut tree,” etc. Continue with “The Chambered Nautilis.” Wind up with the “Witch Scene” and “Dagger Scene” or the “Mad Scene” from Macbeth.
In the words of the author, “the modern method of treatment for stuttering has been clearly outlined above.” The remainder of the chapter is largely concerned with the insistence that both the diagnosis and treatment of speech defects is “the legitimate and exclusive function of a physician.” The physician should be a highly trained man with special preparation in nervous diseases, neurology and psychiatry, and special studies of the throat. “He should also have a wide knowledge of psychology, … such a knowledge of individual psychology as is to be found in the schools of dramatic art.” The special teacher is given a minor place in the field. The author, however, insists that a knowledge of psychology on her part is also invaluable and she is advised to study her psychology in summer courses. “But it is to be distinctly understood that the problem of speech disorders is a medical problem … If a physician’s services are available that is enough. If not, let the teacher take the physician’s place, do his work, and take his pay.” Typhoid fever is a medical problem. We wonder if Dr. Swift would be consistent in his attitude and say, “Let the nurse take the doctor’s pay.”
Chapter three deals with minor speech disorders. Among the types discussed are “nasality,” “monotony,” “harshness,” “hoarseness,” “hasty” and “slovenly” speech. “Monotony of voice is persistent sameness of pitch and intensity.” The first cause of monotony mentioned is absence of thought and emotion. On a following page, under treatment, the author states, ” Monotony is easily treated,” but he_fails to suggest thejjanacea.
Chapter four is entitled “How the Teacher may Acquire a Proper Standard of Speech.” She must spend some time in regular grade work; she must have enjoyed a training in elocution, music, and psychology; she must have a special training for the correction of stutterers; she must know the value of visualization; and finally she is told where to go for training. The first place, mentioned on page 76, is the Medical School of Philadelphia. It is enough to say that no institution under that name ever existed.
Chapter five, “Speech Improvement in the Kindergarten and Elementary Grades” is a very general and pleasant discussion of the early utterances of the child, the importance of the child’s speech environment, the amplification of simple speech, the application of old words to new situations, and a consideration of the early appearance of defects. Dr Swift remarks truthfully that there is great danger in waiting for the defects to be outgrown, and insists that “no treatment could be more foolish than this.” In the final chapter, “Speech Disorders among Abnormal Children and How to Treat Them,” the author points out the futility of the employment of normal phonetics and insists that marked improvement in speech will follow only upon the development of a more normal brain functioning, putting the child in possession of the normal collaborative processes, such as imagination, memory, reasoning, etc.
The teacher with ambition to do corrective speech training, but without technical preparation, who puts her faith in Dr Swift’s book, will find herself in the same position as a certain rich man who equipped himself to shine in a golf tournament by the perusal of “One Hundred Hints on Golf.” E. B. T.
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