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70
Of the thirty-one children who have attended during
1938, twelve have been stammerers, and the remaining nineteen
suffering from varying forms of disordered articulation.
Where mental retardation accompanies the speech
disorder, as has been the case with five of these children,
progress is slow, but at the end of 1938, all twenty-two
children then attending were showing improvement.
Since the Speech Clinic opened in April 1934, twentyfive
children have been discharged and returned to their
schools speaking satisfactorily. After each child has been
discharged for a period of six months or more, he is notified
to attend the speech clinic again for re-inspection in
order to ascertain that his progress has been maintained,
and that the condition of the speech remains satisfactory.
Thirteen children have been re-inspected up to date, and
in eleven of these the speech has remained quite satisfactory,
and the other two relapsed.
Of these, one child who had been admitted to the
Clinic on account of his very undeveloped speech, and who
had been discharged after six months treatment speaking
normally, developed fits a few days after discharge, and
six months later began to stammer. He has been readmitted
to the Speech Clinic and is still attending. The
other was a case of a stammerer who is in the unfortunate
position of living amongst stammering brothers and sisters,
so that she finds it very difficult to control her own speech
while hearing the rest of her family stammering around her.
A question which is frequently asked in the Speech
Clinic is " How long does it take to cure a child's
stammer?" It is impossible to state any definite period, as
the length of treatment required depends on the intelligence
and emotional condition of the stammerer, on environmental
circumstances, and on the ability and willingness
of the parent or guardian to co-operate with the speech
therapist.
In the treatment of any kind of speech disorders, the
most tedious time, is that stage in which the patient having
learnt to speak correctly, though not spontaneously, is now
learning to put his newly acquired speech into normal
every day life. It is during this period that the sympathetic
and intelligent help of parents and teachers is invaluable.