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Stuttering is more prevalent than is ordinarily supposed. The statistics obtained are lower than the actual incidence because a great many sufferers, believing either that they are incurable or that they will "outgrow" the condition, do not apply for treatment. It has been estimated that from 2 to 5 per cent of the school children in the entire United States are suffering from a definite speech defect, and that about 1 per cent of these are stutterers. That means that there are more than 200,000 children in the United States who stutter. To estimate the number of adult stutterers is impossible, for there is no way of obtaining the statistics. However, these figures are sufficiently large to indicate the seriousness of this speech defect.
DEFINITION
There is much controversy as to the exact meaning of stuttering. Some authorities do not differentiate between stuttering and stammering. Among those who do, there