In the average or normal person who has learned to talk correctly, speaking should be practically an unconscious process.  It should not be necessary to make a conscious effort to form words, nor should a normal individual be conscious of the energy necessary to create a word or the muscular movements necessary to its formation and expression.

This will explain why the stutterer or stammerer can talk without difficulty to animals or when alone—­there is no self-consciousness—­no conscious effort—­no thinking of what is being done.

Another of the peculiarities of stammering is that the stammerer in many cases seems to be able to talk perfectly in concert.  This has long baffled the investigator in this field, no reason being assignable for this ability to talk in connection with others.  The baffling element has been this—­that the investigator has assumed that the stammerer talked well in concert, whereas a very careful scientist would have discovered the stammerer to be a fraction of a second or a part of a syllable behind the others.

You have doubtless been in church at some time when you were not entirely familiar with the hymn being sung, yet by lagging a note or two behind the rest, you could sing the song, to all appearances being right along with the others.

When you talk over the long-distance telephone, the voice seems instantly to reach the party at the other end of the line, yet we know that a period of time has had to elapse to allow the voice waves to move along the telephone wire and reach the other end.  The elapse of time has been too slight to be noted by the average human mind and the transmission seems instantaneous.  This is what happens in the case of the stammerer who seems able to talk in concert—­he is merely a syllable or part of a syllable behind the rest, all the while giving the impression nevertheless, that he is talking just as they are.

There are many other individual peculiarities which can be described by almost every stammerer.  These different peculiarities are more numerous than the cases of stammering and it would be useless to attempt to discuss them in detail.  I will take up only two as being typical of dozens which have come under my observation in twenty-eight years’ experience.

One stammerer explains his difficulty as follows:  “I find I am unable to talk and do something else at the same time.  For instance, I have difficulty in talking while dancing, while at the table or while listening to music.  If, for instance, I wish to talk to any one while the Victrola is being played, I unconsciously cut it off.”  This is a case where the stammerer finds that all of his faculties must be concentrated upon a supreme effort to speak before this becomes possible.  In other words, he has not yet learned to control sufficiently the different parts of his body so that they may act independently.  This might be termed a lack of independent co-ordination.