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There is a pseudo-Teutonic air of thoroughness about this book which is not borne out on closer inspection. It is true that it is well loaded with graphs, charts and statistics, and the writer is evidently a hard worker. But he would appear to be very imperfectly informed not only in respect of modern psychological studies of speech, but even in the more special speech literature itself. As might be expected, the greater part of the book is taken up with the problem of stuttering (incidentally the author does not distinguish between stammering and stuttering). The value of his work in this field may be appraised by the following statement on its causation: 'The primary causes of stuttering are: (1) lack of an inherent bias for the development of a sufficiently dominant gradient of excitation in the central nervous system to integrate the movements of the organism in the production of normal speech; (2) environmental interference with the development of a sufficiently dominant gradient of excitation in the central nervous system to integrate the movements of the organism in the production of normal speech; (3) brain injuries at and subsequent to birth; (4) physical and mental diseases' (p. 255). He adds to this a list of accessory causes, among which anxiety figures as ninth.
No allusion is made to any psycho-analytical work in this field.