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The following case history of a traumatic neurosis is presented because it shows an interesting combination of a speech defect (word mutilation) and a masochistic personality reaction, and because it throws some light on the etiology of both symptom groups.
B. W. a five year ten month old boy, referred because of speech defect.
He leaves off initial consonent sounds on almost all words, except where a double sound such as “wr” comes together at the beginning of a word, when the defect changes to omitting the second sound. The following are samples of his way of talking:
“Pay ith” for play with; “wite” for write; “ittle utch irl eying” for little Dutch girl crying; “all iremen up” for call firemen up; “utterfy as o ings” for butterfly has no wings; “gass at oo dink out of” for glass is what you drink out of. There is particular difficulty with G. C. E. At times he reverses letters, e. g., ac would be pronounced ca.
Because of this consistent speech defect, unless one knows something of the ideas behind his remarks it is almost impossible to supply the missing sounds and understand what he says.
He does not seem to feel badly about his speech difficulty, but gets extremely annoyed when his mother cannot understand him. Recently he has been substituting words he can say for those he can't.
He started to talk at eleven months but at eighteen months fell and cut his tongue. He would not allow anyone to attend to the injury until the next morning. Following this injury he ceased to talk and did not begin again till he was two and one-half years old, when his speech showed the defect noted.