SPEECH THERAPY

Evening Star, Issue 22462, 6 October 1936, Page 12

SPEECH THERAPY

METHODS WITH STAMMERERS With their ever-increasing knowledge, medical men and women have discovered methods by which many speech defects may be cured, and the history of the department of speech therapy • attached to the child guidance clinic of the Sydney Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, since its inception in 1931, is one of remarkable success, states the Sydney ‘ Morning Herald.’ The therapist-in-charge, Miss Elinor Wray, has held that position since the opening of the department. In the regular classes she has children suffering from stammering, lading—a defect described as being due to want of precision in the oral articulatory mechanism—idioglossia, which is the substitution of other consonants because of difficulty experienced in pronouncing the correct ones, aphasia, or post-operative cleft palate. The big room in which the lessons are held opens on.„to a verandah and lawn, and much Varied equipment is used in the work. The room represents far more than a mere classroom, for here Miss Wray spends weeks, and sometimes mouths, gaining the confidence of children who suffer from shyness or nervousness before she can begin the long course of correcting the speech. This applies particularly to cases with cleft palates. Having once got beyond this first stage, one of the first curative measures is to make the child breathe out through its mouth. Some pupils are learning to blow bubbles and making quite big ones, after some practice, whereas at first they had great difficulty in making any bubbles at all. The pupils are at all stages, and. the more advanced blow ping-pong balls along a table, or blow to and fro balls, graded in weight, suspended on a string. When Miss Wray takes a class of stammerers, her first concern is to create a state of calm by auto-sugges-tion. The pupils place blankets and pillows on the floor for themselves, and lie down at full length on their backs. Miss Wray then takes up her position in front of them and directs them, in'very quiet and subdued tones, to stretch out one limb after the other and let it fall back into a position completely relaxed. Having made the children completely at ease physically, Miss Wray then intones a slogan, which the children repeat after her, and which is designed to make their minds at ease also. Another means of helping the stammerers to more quietude is to_ provide them with picture books, which they read in pairs. The speech therapy department has had 2,000 attendances since its inception, and at present there are 50 patients attending the classes for speech education. After their discharge, patients suffering from cleft palate disability keep in touch with the hospital through the almoner department, which arranges for their admission to speech classes when they are old enough. The children all receive special dental treatment before or during the period they attend the speech clinic. Before Miss Wray took up her work at tho Children’s Hospital, she spent 12 months in London, where she attended the Central School of Speech Training, under Miss Elsie Fogerty, and, at the same time, gained experience at St. Thomas’s Hospital. She also observed methods of treatment under Mr «Cortlandt M‘Mahon, speech therapist to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and under Miss Eileen M'Cloud. therapist to King’s College Hospital speech department, who is now chairman of the Executive Council of the British Society of Speech Therapists. Miss Wray also spent three months in observation at the London County Council .Stammering Centres, which are directed by Dr E. .1. Bonnie, the practical treatment being done by Miss Richardson and her.staff.