Speech Clinic Report

The Dartmouth Speech Clinic, which Dr. Charles H. Voelker has directed in Hanover since 1935, has ascertained through recent surveys that only 30 to 40 per cent of the student body speaks well enough to be regularly intelligible. Not all the rest have speech disorders and pathologies, Dr. Voelker declares, but from an academic point of view they do not measure up to what the College could expect.

Examinations of the last two entering classes have produced a striking difference in figures, 42 per cent of this year's freshman class speaking quite satisfactorily in contrast to 22.4 per cent of last year's entering class. Fewer students this year were found to be in need of instruction in articulation, but the number needing instruction in poise was more than tripled. The number needing instruction in voice and intonation was slightly smaller than last year, while neither class, on the basis of present educational standards, had need of instruction in pronunciation.

THREE GENERAL FAULTS

Aside from poise and some particular phonetic difficulties, Dr. Voelker has found three general criticisms of the speech of Dartmouth students: (1) Weakness with regard to voice quality and volume; (2) a proneness to nasal speech, destroying preciseness; and (3) deficiency in one aspect of intonation, that of rate or time. Intonation accounts for 40 per cent of the meaning of speech, and rhythm defects have a profound effect on clearness. Articulation, intonation, poise, pronunciation, and voice have all been factors in the speech of Dartmouth men concerning which attempts have been made for improvement this year and last.

The percentage of entering students having actual speech defects dropped this year to ia.a per cent, which more nearly approximates the expectancy in a college group than the 18.4 per cent of 1935-36. This decrease is accounted for principally by the decline in dyslalia and dysphonia cases. There was an increase in dysphemia, however, and the almost doubled number of stutterers, from 1.3 to 2.4 per cent, reaches to more than three times the index for an average population. These students have had or are having treatment at the Speech Clinic.

Dyslalias are disorders of articulation, such as lisping and cluttering. Although this may be a functional affection, at Dartmouth it is most often due to organic peculiarities in structure. Dysphemias are disorders, such as stuttering, which are psychoneurotic in nature. Dysponias are disorders of voice, such as hoarseness, which at Dartmouth are most often functional. In the dysrhytmias, the speech may sound breathy or jerky, and at Dartmouth the basis is usually psychological.