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Probably the most harmful and oft-repeated bit of advice ever given to a stammerer or stutterer is that which says, "Oh, don't bother about it--you will soon outgrow the trouble!" It is the most harmful because it is palpably untrue. It is so oft-repeated because the person giving the advice knows nothing whatever about the cause of stammering and just as little about its progress or treatment.
The fact that we hear of no cases of stuttering or stammering which have been outgrown does not seem to alter the popular and totally unfounded belief that stammering and stuttering can be readily outgrown.
If the reader has not read the chapter on the causes of stuttering and stammering and the two preceding chapters on the Intermittent Tendency and the Progressive Character of these speech disorders, then these chapters should be read carefully before going further with this one, because it is essential to know the cause of the trouble before it is possible to answer intelligently the question, "Can Stammering be Outgrown?"
To any one who understands the nature of the difficulty and the progress it is liable to make, the question is almost as absurd as asking whether or not the desire to sleep can be outgrown by staying awake. But aside from its scientific aspect--aside from the absurdity of the question--let us examine the facts as revealed by actual records of cases. Let us dispense with all theory on the subject and take experience gained in a wide range of cases as the correct guide in finding the answer.
FACTS FROM STATISTICS: An examination of the records of several thousand cases of stuttering and stammering of all types and in all stages of development reveals the fact that after passing the age of six, only one-fifth of one per cent, ever outgrow stammering. This means that out of every five hundred people who stammer, only one ever outgrows it. Between the ages of three and six, the indications are more favorable, the records in these cases showing that slightly less than one per cent, outgrow the difficulty. That means that one out of every hundred children affected has a chance, at least, of outgrowing the difficulty between the ages of three and six, and after that time, only one chance in five hundred.
Suppose you were handed a rifle, given five hundred cartridges and told to hit a bull's eye at a hundred yards, 499 times out of 500. Suppose you were told that if you missed once you would have to suffer the rest of your life as a stammerer.
Would you take the offer? Certainly not!!!
And yet that is exactly the opportunity that a stammerer over six years of age has to outgrow his trouble.
Dr. Leonard Keene Hirschberg, the medical writer, whose suggestions appear daily in a large list of newspapers, has this to say about the possibility of outgrowing stammering:
"Often when the attention of careless and reckless fatalistic relatives is attracted to a child's stammering, they labor under the mistaken illusion that the child 'will outgrow it.' A more harmful doctrine has never been perpetuated than the one contained in that stock phrase. As a matter of experience, speech troubles are not 'outgrown.' They become 'ingrown.' If not corrected at first they go from bad to worse. So firmly rooted and ingrained into the child's habits does stuttering become that with every hour's growth the chance for a cure becomes farther and farther removed."
This statement from Dr. Hirschberg is a straight-forward, practical and common-sense view of the subject.
The belief that the child will outgrow the malady often springs out of the tendency of the stammerer to be better and worse by turns, a condition which is fully described and explained in the chapter on the Intermittent Tendency. There is always present in any case of stammering the opportunity for a cessation of the trouble for a short period of time. The visible condition is changeable and it is this particular aspect of the disorder that renders it deceptive and dangerous, for many, who find themselves talking fairly well for a short period, believe that they are on the road to relief, whereas they are simply in a position where their trouble is about to return upon them in greater force than ever.
From the nature of the impediment--lack of co-ordination between the brain and the organs of speech--stammering cannot be outgrown --no more so than the desire to eat or to talk or to sleep.
Back of that statement, there is a very sound scientific reason that explains why stammering cannot be outgrown. Stammering is destructive. It tears down but cannot build up. Every time the stammerer attempts to speak and fails, the failure tears out a certain amount of his power-of-will. And since it is impossible for him to speak fluently except on rare occasions, this loss of will-power and confidence takes place every time he attempts to speak, so that with each successive failure, his power to speak correctly becomes steadily lessened. The case of a stammerer might be compared to a road in which a deep rut has been worn. Each time a wagon passes through this rut, it becomes deeper. The stammerer has no more chance of outgrowing his trouble than the road has of outgrowing the rut.
Dr. Alexander Melville Bell recognizes the absolute certainty of the progress of stammering and the impossibility of outgrowing the difficulty, when he states in his work, PRINCIPLES OF SPEECH (page 234):
"If the stammerer or stutterer were brought under treatment before the spasmodic habit became established, his cure would be much easier than after the malady has become rooted in his muscular and nervous system."
To the stammerer or stutterer or the parents of a stammering child, experience brings no truer lesson than this: Stammering cannot be outgrown; danger lurks behind delay.
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