Monster Study Stuttering Theory

The other 12 children were chosen randomly between the ages of 5 and 15 and in that group, they split them evenly into the control and experimental group. They came to the conclusion that diagnosing stuttering early can cause stuttering. The children were scared to speak most of the time. They were scared to stutter and were always overthinking it. This experiment also affected the way they acted at school and interacted with others.

L.R.’s fluency was assessed using the Stuttering Severity instrument- Fourth Edition (SSI-4). The SSI-4 is a norm-referenced assessment, that analyzes a child or adult’s stuttering severity. The SSI-4 assesses four speech behaviors of the examinee’s speech, (i.e., frequency, duration, physical concomitants, and naturalness of the examinee’s speech). A speech sample was observed through natural speech and a picture description task.

One of America’s finest essayists, Edward Hoagland, in his essay, “On Stuttering” describes how his handicap has affected his life. Hoagland’s intention is to suggest that although his disability has made his life more difficult, it is a part of his life none the less, and has pushed him to become a better person. He adopts a somewhat scholarly tone, using complex vocabulary in an effort to convey to his readers that his disability has allowed him to excel as much as it has held him back.

The Monster study is speech impediment experiment that was done on the children that lived in the orphanage. This experiment was conducted to find out if stuttering was inherited or did environment play a key factor. Wendell Johnson was the speech pathologist that conducted this study to find the cause and cure for stuttering. This study violated a lot of ethical issues because the children were psychological harm, informed consent was not given and the subjects were deceived. Wendell Johnson had a biased opinion in this study because he was a stutter himself and was desperate for a cure. In this paper, I will discuss the background of this experiment and the violations of ethics that were done in this study.

In the short stories, “On Stuttering,” by Edward Hoagland, and “Me Talk Pretty,” by David Sedaris, the authors discuss how they dealt with their speech impediments. They wrote about the way they handled their difficulties with speech, the different strategies they used, and how their limitations affected how they felt about themselves. Although the two author’s handicaps were not identical, they both used similar approaches to overcome them.

His conversations are limited with strangers; it is only with close friends and family that Hoagland is able to hold a clear and fluid discussion. His handicap was a factor of low self confidence. Furthermore, some of his scariest moments as a stutterer were as a father when his daughter was learning to speak and thought that she was supposed to stutter, and also when he had to have to give a speech at a wedding. Nonetheless, Hoagland refused to let his stuttering control his life. He is able to get in to the Army by telling them that he only stuttered because he was “nervous,” and even goes on to become a college professor.

“Look then, if you dare, at South Central through the eyes of one of its most notorious Ghetto Stars and the architect of its most ghastly gang army- the Crips” (Scott 1993:xv). Sanyika Shakura, birth name Kody Scott, explains to his readers the violence, attitudes, and brutality he experienced first hand in the 1980s when he joined a gang called The Crips at age eleven. According to Kontos and Brotherton (2008), writers of The Encyclopedia of Gangs, define the name Crip as “the combination of the word crib and the acronym R.I.P. that denotes the intergenerational nature of the gang and membership from birth to death (Sloan, 2005)” (p. 43-44). Shakura, referred to as Scott throughout this piece, walks us

The Monster Study was conducted by Wendell Johnson and Mary Tudor at the University of Iowa in 1939. The purpose of this experiment was to see how positive speech affected orphan children. They also wanted to find out if stutters were genetic or formed because of the environment the child was exposed to. Twenty two orphan children were chosen to be the test subjects. Only ten of the children had a stutter. They were split into two groups. One group received positive praises and the other group received negative encouragement. None of the kids knew what they were being tested for.

This documentary focuses on the journey of seven different individuals who are considered people who stutter. I believe it is important to note the statistics of the prevalence of stuttering mentioned in the video. The statistic states that 1 out of 100 adult and 5 out of 100 children are people who stutter. This prevalence is important for speech therapists to become informed and equipped to treat this population. This documentary gives great insight on the struggles and successes of this population.

Essi Viding, a professor in the psychology and language sciences department of University College London, who was not involved in

In 1939 an experiment now known as the “Monster Study” was conducted on 22 orphaned children by Wendell Johnson, a very influential speech pathologist at the University of Iowa. In this experiment the orphaned children were divided up into two separate groups. One group was given positive speech therapy, in which they were praised for their fluency. The other group was given negative speech therapy. They were belittled for every speech imperfection and told that they were stutterers. Many of the normal speaking children who were subjected to the negative speech therapy experienced negative psychological effects and some developed lasting speech impediments.

3121). For example a six year old may be speaking at the norm of a four year old; all speech is in tack but development is lagging. It is noted that boys are at an increased risk of speech and language delay by three to four times more than girls (American Family Physician, 1999, pg. 3121). It is also estimated that 2% to 19% of preschoolers suffer from some sort of language deficiency (CASLPA, 2012). Phonology (the appropriate speech sounds of the language spoken) and stuttering may include 1% to 4% of defined speech issues. It is also important to note that there is a 20% to 40% risk factor of speech problems among those children with a family history (CASLPA, 2012).

Many speech language pathologists (SLPs), after diagnosing a child with stuttering are left with the problems of what treatment program should be implemented and what are the chances that the

Eight students participated in a study of the Irrelevant Speech Effect. Irrelevant speech disrupts immediate serial recall. In this study we test the disruptive effects of irrelevant speech on serial recall. In this experiment participants saw a list of randomly ordered digits 1-9. During the some trials they heard irrelevant speech in the background, while other trials were quiet. This irrelevant speech was a passage from Franz Kafka in German (Francis, Neath, & VanHorn, 2008). We found a main effect of Trial Type, which were the quiet and irrelevant speech background conditions. This is evidence that the irrelevant speech effect did take place.

Woodcock Johnson Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities Revised. It has good high level tasks for specific drill down areas and strong norms including pediatrics /grade level equivalents but is not normed for ABI or other disease categories.