Globusz^® Publishing 

A diagnosis is an examination or analysis to determine the identity of a disease and to reveal its cause and characteristics. A reputable medical man will not undertake the treatment of any malady without having first made a searching examination and a thorough diagnosis of the trouble.

In the case of the stammerer or stutterer, expert diagnosis is very important and should be undertaken only by a diagnostician who has had previous training and experience of sufficient duration to enable him to be classed as an expert on the subject. No stammerer or stutterer, however, should overlook the value of such diagnosis, for the reason that there are so many forms of speech disorders that it is totally impossible as well as unsafe for the sufferer himself to try to determine the exact nature of his trouble.

I recall the case of a certain young man who had depended upon his own knowledge to determine the identity of his speech defect and the nature of his trouble. When a boy, he had swallowed a small program pencil with a metal tip, injuring his vocal cords, so he said, and causing him to become a stammerer. An examination of his condition and a careful diagnosis of his case revealed the fact that his vocal organs were as normal as those of any person who had never stammered. The diagnosis also revealed the fact that his stammering was not originally caused by any organic defect or any injury to the vocal organs, but that, on the other hand, he had, in the first place, inherited a predisposition to stammer, his father and his grandfather both having been stammerers whose trouble had never been remedied. The diagnosis showed that the onset of the trouble immediately after swallowing the pencil was due chiefly to the nervous shock and fright caused by the accident, which, in conjunction, with the inherited predisposition toward stammering, was too much for the boy's mental control and he immediately developed into a stammerer. The young man had believed for many years that his defective utterance was totally incurable, that it was due to an organic defect which could not be remedied. The diagnosis quickly revealed, however, that a very different condition was responsible for his trouble and as a consequence, he found himself able to be cured where, without expert diagnosis, he had resigned himself to a life as a stammerer.

Another case which also shows the stammerer's inability to diagnose his own trouble accurately was that of a woman who persistently refused to allow her son to have his case diagnosed, because of her belief that he was incurable and that the diagnosis would be a waste of time and money.

After months of coaxing, however, he succeeded in getting her to consent and I gave him a thorough diagnosis and report on his condition. This mother had been unduly alarmed--the boy was still in a curable stage and in fact completed the necessary work in much less than the usual time. This is but another case that shows the loss which comes from not knowing the truth.

Written Report of Diagnosis Valuable: It is well to get a personal diagnosis of the case where possible, but if this cannot be done, a written history of the case, together with a statement of the symptoms and present condition, should enable the expert diagnostician of speech defects to make a thorough and reliable diagnosis of the trouble.

This diagnosis, to be of the most value to the stammerer or stutterer, should be made up in the form of a written report, so that the information may be in permanent form and so that the sufferer can study his own case in all its angles.

WHAT DIAGNOSIS SHOULD SHOW: First of all, of course, the diagnosis should identify and label your trouble. It should tell what form of speech defect is revealed by the symptoms; it should tell the cause of the trouble; the stage it is now in; should indicate whether or not there is any organic defect; should give information as to the possibilities of outgrowing the trouble; and, most important of all, should state whether or not the disorder is in a curable stage.

When it is remembered that nearly a dozen more or less common speech disorders can be named, almost in one breath, and that some of these disorders may pass through four or five successive stages, it will be seen that an expert diagnosis and report is almost a necessity to the stammerer or stutterer who would have reliable and authoritative information about his speech disorder.

The stammerer or stutterer who voluntarily remains in the dark, who is satisfied with gross ignorance of his trouble, is surely not on the road to freedom of speech.

The most able man cannot decide correctly without the facts. To decide in the absence of information is guesswork--and guesswork is a poor method of deciding what to do--in the case of the stammerer as in every other case.

Therefore, it behooves the stammerer to become enlightened to as great an extent as possible, to banish ignorance of his trouble and replace it with facts and sound knowledge.