A disgusting story, told at length here
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/magazine/16STUTTERING.html>
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Wendell Johnson, a stutterer himself, theorized that stuttering is
caused entirely by environment, in particular parental reaction to
initial speech hesitations. One of his students tested his theory on
a group of midwestern US orphans; the data totally disproved it. Dr
Johnson was so attached to his theory, however, he ignored the data
and spent 20 years propagating his erroneous theory.
>Johnson had no family history of stuttering and dismissed the
>possibility that the condition could be heritable. ''Stuttering is
>learned behavior, Johnson said, and he repeated it again and
>again,'' [a student of his] wrote in an e-mail message. ''It
>virtually became his mantra.'' He had indirect, anecdotal data, too,
>that backed his contention. Beginning in 1934, he and his assistants
>questioned the mothers of dozens of young stutterers, asking when
>the disorder had begun and how the family had responded. He also
>tested age-matched ''normal'' speakers and found that they had many
>speech defects as well. Unfortunately for the ''stutterers,''
>Johnson said, their parents overreacted, made the children panic and
>produced full-blown stuttering. The diagnosis caused the condition.
>Johnson termed this the diagnosogenic theory, and it became the
>cornerstone for his writing and teaching, his growing fame and
>eventually the basis for his ideas about the treatment of stuttering
>children. It also, by its dictates, should have ensured that all the
>orphans [...] would stutter soon after [the study's author] began
>telling them that they did.
>
--
Jesse the K -- Madison, WI USA -- mailto:[log in to unmask]
I prefer to remain anomalous.
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