The disorders of speech.

  • Wyllie, John, 1914-
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The disorders of speech. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    If I were a teacher of deaf-mutes, I should, I think, have the first series of lessons printed entirely in such a phonetic alphabet. The next lessons I should have printed in double lines, of which one would be phonetic and the other in the ordinary spelling. Later, the two spellings might be given on opposite pages. Still later, only a few of the more difficult words might be repeated in phonetic spelling, after the ordinary spelling; and finally, the lessons might be printed entirely in the ordinary spelling. 1 submit this sugges- tion, respectfully, for the consideration of those who may be specially interested in the education of deaf-mutes. Perhaps I may not be considered too bold in offering it, since I have, of late years, been a good deal occupied with the study of the Physio- logical Alphabet. The system of Lip-Eeading is rapidly gaining ground every- where. It has no rival in its capability of enabling deaf-mutes to mingle in ordinary society. It is also claimed for it, by its advocates, that it is a better aid to thinking than any of the other methods. Although, as has been truly said, the uneducated deaf- mute is a standing refutation of the opinion that there can be no rational thinking without words, it is nevertheless the case that his thinking can never attain to a high level until he has been educated to the use of words. In order to think in words, he must first be able to call up their images in his mind. No process of training will ever enable him to call up their sound-images. For him, sound has no existence. But, in the absence of sound, he can, when educated, store up the visual images of written words; and he can use these in the processes of thinking, in place of the sound- images employed by others. If trained to Oral Articulation and Lip-Reading, he can employ other word-images or word- memories, of a kind more closely allied to sound-images. He can then employ the memories of production that are imprinted by the muscular sense of the motor mechanism and by the tactile sense of the mucous surfaces used in speech. To these, in forming his concepts of words, he can add the sense of vibration produced by the voice, and also the visual memories of the movements observed in others when he is practising lip-reading of their speech. It seems that the memories or concepts of words thus obtained are the best working substitutes for the sound-memories which ordinary people employ in the processes of thinking. Even in