Evening Star Newspaper, January 17, 1932, Page 79

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., JANUARY 17, 1932 13 WHY STUTTERERS STUTTER The Two Halves of the Brain Do Not Work Together, but by Training the Left Hand of a Right-Handed Stutter- er, the Affliction Can Be Cured Because the “‘Left-Handed” Half-Brain Learns to Work onTime. BY MARJORIE VAN DE WATER. ERHAPS you stutter. If you do, you may find some small consolation for your handicap in the realization that you have plenty of company. It is estimated that the number of stutterers in the United States is more than a million. Approximately a fourth of these are children. » Many are the “cures” that have been pro- posed from the time that Demosthenes put a pebble under his tongue to cure a speech defect until today, when the stutterer is urged to de- velop his will, to make himself believe that he will not stutter, to force himself to adopt a deliberate slow speech, or to drill interminably over lists of the most troublesome words or sounds. Some of these methods have helped. Under certain conditions, the stutterer might be en- abled to talk in such a fluent fashion that his associates might not know that he was a stut- terer. But for the most part the stutterer still re- mained a stutterer. By earnest and continu- ous struggle he might succeed in speaking clearly, but it would always be under a strain that the non-stutterer has never experierced. That is becezuse so little was known about why stutterers stutter. Those who formulated the cures did not knew the cause of what they were trying to remedy. ODAY many scientists are devoting careful research to the problem of speech defects. Early in this year 28 leading experts in this field contributed to a symposium, giving their views and pointing the way for further re- search. One of these experts was Dr. Lee Edward Travis, director of the Speech Clinic in the University of Iowa—a unique clinic for treat- ing speech disorders with the aid of all avail- able scientific devices and the best knowledge of the day. Dr. Travis has developed a theory of his own explaining the origin and cause of stutter- ing, and has described it in a new book, “Speech Pathology.” It is a novel theory. But it is one which has the support of recent research in the biological sciences. And it is practical. It has led to the development of treatment which has relieved many of the most severe cases of speech disorder. One of the most important of Dr. Travis’ discoveries is that stuttering is not merely a matter of a “twisted tongue” or malfunction of the organs of speech. HEN a man stutters, he stutters all over. His breathing becomes irregular. ‘The breathing movements of the abdomen and of the chest are out of harmony. He is unable to continue a rhythmic movement such as the opening and closing of his hands. And he stutters even when he is not speak- fng! The irregular breathing and the spasm of the muscles cf the stutterer go on when he is reading silently or even when he is just thinking. He stutters when he writes! It may show in little hitches or tremors in the pen strokes which bear a close resemblance to “stalling” of of the tongue in speech. Although the writer may know exactly what he wants to set down, he may be unable for several seconds at a time to continue with his writing. The letters may be quite illegible and their order reversed. Tests given in Dr. Travis’ laboratory showed that stutterers differ in certain interesting ways from normal speakers, and these differences gave a clue to the origin of their difficulty. When a right-handed normal speaker is asked to close his two hands simultaneously, he may try to do so, but the movement will start in his right hand just a little sooner than in his left. When the right-handed stutterer tries the same thing, it is his left hand that usually gets off to the better start! Another test is to trace the simple outlines of a five-pointed star while looking at the star in a mirror. The star itself is hidden from the subject and the mirror reflection of the star and his hand is the only guide to his movements. The right-handed, ncrmal speaker in the great majority of cases will do much better with his right hand than with his left at this Dr. Edward Lee Travis, who advanced a new theory about the cause of stut- tering and helped evolve a cure. task of reversing ordinary movements. Yet most right-handed stutterers are more skillful with the unpracticed left hand! HEN Dr. Travis raised the question, are these right-handed stutterers “right-eyed”? Perhaps it has never occurred to you that you use cne eye any more than the other. But just try sighting a gun at a target. Or Jooking through a telescope. Or squinting up one eye to look at a painting. You will probably find that you naturally choose a certain one of your eyes. If you are right-handed, the chances are about seven to three that your favored eye will be the right eye. Right-handed stutterers, however, are the ex- ceptions to this rule. They naturally tend to a much greater degree to use the left eye. Stutterers, then, although they may have de- veloped skill in the use of the right hand so that they are considered right-handed, evidently have a strong tendency toward the use of the left hand and the left eye. Could this be the answer to the problem? Physiologists have known for some time that the movements of the right hand, the right foot, the right eye, all the right parts of the body are controlled by the left half of the brain. The left side is controlled by the right hemisphere of the brain. One way of helping a stuiterer. Writing with the left hand and repeat- ing the words at the same time helps to restore the dominance of the right side of the brain for the stutterer. who should be left-handed, but isn't. PEECH is a very intricate process, involving not only the muscles of tongue, lips and jaw, but the breathing muccles of the chest and abdomen. Al this apparatus must work in perfect harmcny—as the engineer would put it, it must synchronize. It won't do at a'l for the chest muscles to be inhaling while the abdominal muscles are trying to expel the air. When this happens, stuttering results. For this reason, Dr. Travis has decided, two heads are not better than one. One-half of the brain must be in complete control! If the other half attempts to go “red” and try out a sepa- rate government independent of its mate, the result is chaos. It seems evident from tests of stutterers that this is the cause of the stuttering spasm throughout the whole body. Perhaps the vic- tim was born with a natural dominance of the right hemisphere of the brain. But early in his life, parents, teachers and associates trained him early and late to use his right hand. It was “Take the rattle in your right hand, baby,” and “Try lacing your shoe with your right hand, Junior, you can do it better,” and later, “No, you must hold your pencil in your right hand,” and “Edward, don't be so awk- ward, use your right hand for your knife!” It seems that only in base ball is the southpaw appreciated. Through this constant training of the right hand, he becomes deft with it. But all the time he is training that naturally weaker left side of his brain until one side is equal or nearly equal in power to the other side. Then the stuttering begins, usually before the child is 8 years old. HIS difference in power between the two halves of the brain, Dr. Travis calls the “margin of dominance.” This, he says, “ranges in different individuals from zero amount to a very large and safe amount. If the margin is small, stimuli of slight emotional value and conditions which bring about small amounts of physical and mental fatigue will produce stuttering. “If there is equal dominance, we have the stutterer who stutters under all conditions of speech. If the margin is large, we have the normal speaker under practically all physical and mental conditions.” A scientist in the Iowa Speech Clinic Laboraiories used a movie camera to record (u‘li(}n currents from the two forearms, when both hands are closed at the same time. A step in the study of stuttering causes. Ly WY - (P Of course, the left-handed child trained to be rignt-handed is not the only one whose- margin of dominance is small. At birth, no one has it. Although many have already in them an innate tendency toward right-handé- ness or left-_ andedness, not every one does. “The young infant,” Dr. Travis says, “does not show a preference for the one or the other hand much before the seventh month. Until this time he seems essentially ambidextrous, reaching for articles apparently indiscriminately with either hand. “In considering handedness one must realize that the term includes all degrees, from a con- dition of inveterate left-handedness which no amount of effort appears to alter, through lesser degrees of both left and right handedness which early training can readily change in either direction, to a degree of right-handed- ness which is highly refractory to change by training. OME children may delay showing any pref- erence for one hand or the other until al- most school age. A few never develop any dominance. Others may have their natural dominance interfered with by injuries to the brain by accident or illness. Dr. Travis was not discouraged when he came to the conclusion that stuttering was an evidence of a functional disorder of the brain. Far from it! He went right ahead and de- veloped a method for forcing the brain to work properly. The process consists mainly of exercises to develop that sideof the brain which should®be dominant. If th€ tests show that the stutterer should be left-handed, his left hand goes into training; if right-handed, his right hand re- ceives the training. Piano playing and typewriting are banned. So also are all other activities in which both hands are used. A direct relationship has been found between the amount of daily practice on the piano and the severity of stuttering. On the other hand, all games which will develop strength and skill in the desired hand are recommended. Tennis, horseshoes, ball pitching, punching a bag have their part in curing the speech defect when they are prac- ticed with the desired hand. Writing, of course, must be done with the desired hand. But so also must cutting the meat at dinner, combing the hair and lacing the shoes. HE important thing in curing the stutterer is somehow to make the dominant side of the brain control the speech mechanism. This may seem like an impossibility. You cannot say, “Now I will use the right side of my brain,” and go shead and do it. It is much more difficult than learning to wiggle your ears. But the psychologist has achieved just this by training the desired hand and by the use of an- other ingenious device. He has the persgr . write and speak at the same time. Wri 3 with the left hand is controlled by the right side of the brain. Speech going on at the same time would naturally come under the same control. The person begins by copying words and speaking them at the same time. The writing movement is always started before the word is pronounced. Then the words may be spoken more rapidly and only the initial letter written. Finally ordinary conversation is conducted in this manner. The stutterer finds it much easier to when he combines his speech with writing in this manner. Gradually his speech improwss until only certain sounds give difficulty. \