ABSTRACT
Stammering also is a disorder of diction. It is interesting to note that, in spite of the multiformity of its character, even the layman, with few exceptions, is able to comprehend the various types of this disorder under one concept. The terms used in common English parlance and dialects all refer to the behaviour of the patients. Thus stammering and stuttering carry the connotations ‘to walk with heavy, awkward, unsteady steps; to hesitate, to stagger, to stumble, to totter, to falter.’ Numerous inquiries have shown that the onset of developmental stammering or its exacerbation takes place as a rule in periods of rapid growth. Stammering “is, for instance, rare in Rumania, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, the lands of soft sounds and of the warm climate which precludes rush and hurry. Again, those countries whose people have fewer repressions and inhibitions, and consequently less mental conflict and nervous strain, will produce proportionally fewer stammerers.
