OUR BABIES

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 60, 4 December 1920, Page 7

OUR BABIES

(By "Hygoia.")

Published under the auspices ot tho Royal New Zoaiand Socioty for . tho Health of Women and Children. "It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than' to maintain an ambulapce at tho bottom." STAMMERING. . ~ We havo received tha two following letters from parents who want advice ou this subject:— A FATHER'S tETTEE. We have a boy four years old last April, a healthy ho.y; but for tho !n»t two years he has been troubled with stammering.- Ho {s a restless sleeper and excitable, but ho ents well and is in the best of spirits. Wo shail bo obliged if you will let us know if anything can bo done to cure th 6 stammering. He is the only boy; be has two younger sisters, but their speech is 'all risht.

A GILAOTMOT ITER'S LETTER. I read your weekly column with great Interest, 1 and I am bo much impressed by ■the _ wise advice it contains that I am an'xious to ask for your help on the loi lowing case:—A littlo boy in whom I u.m interested has always been left-handed. Since going to school ho has been taught I? po-Ws right hand Ifi writing,-etc. tin has lately developed, a. stammer, which seems to be increasing.' Are. the two . things connected, and should ho bo allowftd to use his left hand, as ho 1b natur* ally inclined to do? For "tile salcc of many *tanimererE and left-handed' children an answer in the' column would be much •mpreclateil. , • EEPLr. -We are glad to deal with this subject in -the column, ■ becauso stammering is much more important than is genially realised. Parents often fail to talto tllo matter seriously,' and allow the habit to tfo on unchecked, under tho impression 'that the child will grow out of it. 'l'he ■commonness of this idea. may be accounted for .to some extent by the fact that, its. Sir Frederick fcjtell says: Occasional stuttering ib so common vin children of two or three years, .whilst,:they are learning to talk, an .. to be ' almost a normal feature at this age. . llow often one notices that a little child will articulate quite regularly 'and. smoothly so long as. he talks •iglowly, but directly he becomes eager ■'•and excited his co-ordination fails, he • stumbles in his speech! (stuttering at ~ .this age is,. indeed, exactly analogous , ,to the stumbling in walking, which is bo common not only in.the child who : is learning to walk, but. also during ' tho first two or threo years of life, : when tho child attempts to walk fast or to run. Both in walking and in . speech • the failure of co-ordination . and the tendency. to stumble is specially noticeable when the child hurries, and also when ho' is tired.

.- The powers of walking and Bpeaking are ■a universal and commonplace that it may never occur to us how wonderful and complex they are, and how difficult to'acquire. When an adult first mounts a bicycle he finds it impossible to make his jiuscles work in harmony and pull the right strings at the right time, and mere balancing is impossible. Yet learning to ride a bicycle is a less complex feat than learning to walk eroct on two loose, many-jointed limbs; and infinitely less complex than learning to talk in a clear and orderly way. Proper speech-co-ordination is extremely difficult, and few of us ever become perfect speakers, though we all learn to talk after a fashion. The wonder is, not that some children fail to Bpealc 'perfectly, but that any of us - ever get' much beyond the monkoy-staga of 'mere chatter. . •/A great aid to dealing effectively with a' case of stammering is a simple understanding uf the mechanism of speech— indeed, a leading authority sayß this Is absolutely, necessary for the intelligent treatment of the trouble..

.In order to speak properly we must bring into very pcrfect and orderly cooperative action three quite distinct, separate, and highly complex • groups of nerves and muscles—three entirely separate, muscular mechanisms—viz.:

•: Mechanism I.—The breathing apparatus, for supplying a regular blast of air. The child must learn to -blow the bulla VJ properly. There is a great tendency to blow not steadily, but jerkily, when trying at the same time to work mechanisms II and 111.

"Mechanism ll.—The apparatus in the throat for transforming the blast of air into voice sounds. This is done by delicate muscular variations in the tension and separation of the vocal cords, and is like tho work of the "chanter" in the bagpipes. lll.—The muscles of the Hps, tongue, ,and palate, which change the shape of the-.mouth-chamber. e» as -to modify' thc voicd nnd-spllt up mere continuous'sound into separate .words and. sentences: articulation means "dividing into, joints." • As Dr. Colman saj'E: "Not only must the component mosefes of each of theSo delicate mechanismß act in perfect concert, but there must be absolute harmony and co-ordination 'of each of tho three mechanisms with one another." It Is the difficulty of performing tho necessary movements of the tongue and lipswhich usually worries the stutterer most, but the real difficulty lies mainly in securing proper co-ordinate, action of tho voice-production mechanism and the mechanism of articulation—in other words, the mouth-mechanism which modifies and cuts up the voice into • separate jointß or speech units. From what lias been said as to stumbling being. 1 as natural in learning to speak as in learning- tp walk, and as liable to occur for a time in early cliildhoal under temporary excitement, it will bo understood that occasionally slight stuttering in tho first two or three years of lifo is more or lesß normal and natural, and need cause •no serious anxiety, though parents Bhould always be on their guard to prevent slight. occasional, stumbling from-passing into a confirmed and increasing tendency to this loss of control. The natural tendency of simple, occasional stuttering, occurring in the first two or three years, is to jass off completely in tho course of a few months. If it does not, o, doctor shopld be conBlllted. •• , ;. • Professor Emmett Holt, of New York. •ayat Occasional stuttering is seen in.very . many children. It la more, frequent in the third and fourth years, before speech is thoroughly mastered. At that ngo it is aggravated- or produced by disturbances of nutrition, but is usually, a. temporary condition lasting-'' for a. few - weeks or - months. ' Recently a littlo boy of four wan under our care, who bccamo very anaemic, 1 slept poorly, and suffered from malnutrition as a reßult of the confinement incident to a home in the city. Hp soon began to stutter, ami in a short time if became paWully marked. After a few weeks in the country ho improved very much in his general condition, gained 41b. or 51b. In weight, and his Btuttcring completely disappeared. In other. cases Btuttering follows some acute illness, and . nnder such conditions rfso it- is usually of short . duration.-

'''3ldst, children who become habitual stutterers do not' begin until they, are six or Beven years'old, and. sometimes even later ... it may arise from 'imitation.