Neglected Education: No one need hesitate to place himself under our
instruction on account of neglected education or advanced age. All
embarrassments are carefully avoided. Scores of backward pupils, who do
not even know how to read or write, enter every year, and are entirely
and permanently cured by the Unit Method.

CHAPTER VIII

A HEART-TO-HEART TALK WITH PARENTS

If you are the mother or father of a child who stammers, you should
first of all read Chapters IX to XIV, inclusive, in Part Two of this
book. These chapters deal with the speech disorders of children from
before the first spoken word up until the age of 21, when structurally
as well as legally the mind and body of the infant merge into that of
the adult.

No mother or father can understand their child's disorder without
having read these Chapters. To fail to understand is to multiply the
chance for error in deciding what to do. Therefore, I repeat, if you
are the mother or father of a boy or girl who stammers, read chapters
on Child Stammering before you go further.

There are three mistaken beliefs in the minds of many parents of
stammering children which must be rooted out before the child will have
an opportunity to be cured of his trouble.

These beliefs are:

1--That the child will outgrow his trouble and therefore need
only be permitted to "grow older," at which tune the trouble
will disappear.
2--That the child could stop stammering if he would try--that
the trouble is but a malicious habit of the child's, which
he could put away from him if he would.
3--That the child's trouble is incurable and that nothing can
be done for him.

All of these beliefs are entirely fallacious and based purely upon
ignorance of the cause and progress of the child's trouble. There is
not the slightest scientific foundation for them, they are not beliefs
based on facts or upon experience--yet in many homes, they constitute
the chief obstacle between the stammering child and his complete and
permanent cure.

As long as you believe that your child will out-grow his or her
trouble, you take no steps to have the disorder eradicated.

What happens?

The trouble becomes worse from month to month and from year to year,
until in many cases where the "outgrowing belief" persists, the trouble
passes into a chronic and incurable stage and the stammering child
becomes the stammering man or woman, condemned to