Stammering -its nature, history, causes and cures
by David Compton.
Hodder and Stoughton 1993, ISBN 0-340-56274-9.

The sleeve notes claims that David Compton, a lifelong stammerer, has written the first comprehensive layman's book on the subject of stammering. In the introductory chapter, entitled "Why this book?", the author states that the book is not an autobiographical account - he claims that he hasn't done anything that other stammerers could learn from - but it is written from a very personal viewpoint. It is not an impartial review of everything you needed to know about stammering but were afraid to ask. Neither is it a self-help manual. However the author succeeds in taking the reader on a uniquely interesting, articulate and entertaining guided tour of the whole subject in only 121 pages of text (excluding appendices).

The second chapter is a potted history, from the stone age to the present, of stammering and its treatments. Many of the past treatments appear to have been broadly based on the principles of corporal punishment! The historical theme is developed further in an appendix, which contains an edited Victorian treatise on the Beasley system "perfected in 1876 ... for the cure of stammering and all defects of speech".

The four chapters forming the core of the book deal with "What is a stammer, What is a cure?", "Causes", "Treatments" and "Parents and children". The content is well researched and generally balanced. After consideration of a number of possibe underlying causes the author presents his hypothesis that heredity works hand in hand with mixed hemispherical dominance to produce a constitutional predisposition toward disordered speech, and that this predisposition is then activated by stress. He can be overly dismissive about some possible factors, such as muscular co-ordination. He expresses the view that it's talking that bothers stammerers, not threading a needle or playing ping-pong, whereas there is scientific evidence to suggest that stammerers perform less well or less quickly at some manual tasks. The structures involved in speech are clearly quite different from those involved in threading needles. He can also be quite withering about some treatments, but on the other hand the book never claims to present an unbiased view. Another minor niggle is that David Compton does not reference his sources. There is a general bibliography at the end of the book, but if you get really interested in something specific and want to find out more you may have to put in some leg work to discover the original sources.

Despite the earlier disclaimer to autobiography, the author writes in the concluding chapter about personal experiences surrounding his ability, shared with many other stammerers, to shed his stammering persona when performing in public - as long as the words are read or learnt, and not his own. He suggests that at the moment when the stammerer thus becomes non-stammerer a clear and predictable change occurs in him, and that a fruitful new direction for research might be to hold this moment up to the light, by attempting to reproduce it clinically.

David Compton's book is a very good read, especially for stammerers who are not afraid of laughing at themselves, and for anyone else who is interested in looking at stammering from a stammerer's point of view.

Reviewed by Dr. Chris Lewis in the Winter 1991 issue of 'Speaking Out'.

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