This “Synonym Stammerer” is storing up endless trouble for himself, however, for the mental strain of trying to remember and speak synonyms of hard words entails such a great drain upon his mind as to make it almost impossible to maintain the practice for any great length of tune.  In this connection, let every stammerer be warned to avoid this practice of substitution of words.  It is a seeming way out of difficulty sometimes, but you will find that you are only making your malady worse and laying up difficulties for yourself in the future.

CHAPTER III

CASES THAT CANNOT BE CURED

In an experience in meeting stammerers and in curing stammering it is only natural to assume that I have come across certain cases which could not be cured.  It is only natural, too, to expect that in such a wide experience it would be possible to determine what cases are incurable and why.

Cases of incurable speech impediments may be divided into seven classes: 

(1)—­Those with organic defects;
(2)—­Those with diseased condition of the brain;
(3)—­Those who have postponed treatment until their malady
has progressed so far into the chronic stage as to make
treatment valueless;
(4)—­Those who refuse to obey instructions;
(5)—­Those who persist in dissipation, regardless of effects;
(6)—­Those of below normal intelligence;
(7)—­Those who will not make the effort to be cured.

Stutterers and stammerers whose trouble arises from an organic defect are so few as to be almost an exception, but where those cases exist, they must be regarded as incurable.  The re-educational process used in the successful method of curing stuttering and stammering will not replace a defective organ of the body with a new one.  It will not cure harelip or cleft palate, nor will it loosen the tongue of the child who has been hopelessly tongue-tied from birth.

A boy was brought to me some years ago by his parents in the hope that his speech trouble might be eradicated, but it was found upon examination that he had always been tongue-tied and that the deformity would not permit of the normal, natural movements of the tongue necessary to proper speaking.  I immediately told the parents the unfortunate condition of their son and frankly stated that in his condition there was no possibility of my being able to help him.

Diseased brain:  Taking up the second class—­those who have a diseased condition of the brain—­these cases, too, are very rare.  I have met but a comparatively few.  Where a lesion of the brain has occurred, and a distinct change has thus been brought about in the physical structure of that organ, an attempt to bring about a cure would be a waste of time—­hopeless from the start.

The procrastinators:  The third type of incurable cases is that of the stammerer or stutterer who, against all advice and experience, has persisted in the belief that his trouble would be outgrown and who has by this means allowed the disorder to progress so far into the chronic stage as to make treatment entirely without effect.