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From: Judy Kuster
Date: 17 Oct 2007
Time: 16:37:26 -0500
Remote Name: 134.29.31.214
Walt relates part of the history of James Earl Jones who chose not to speak rather than stutter for a period in his life. Van Riper also chose to be mute for 2-4 weeks one summer, applying for a farm job in Wisconsin. He saw a sign saying, "Help wanted" and applied for it with a note saying, "I'm deaf and dumb but I'm a good worker and need a job." After doing what he called "hard, dirty work" for nearly a month, he wrote a note, quitting. The farmer never heard him speak all that time. Van Riper talked about leaving that job weeping, but then after walking 8-9 miles, sat down to rest. A old man stopped his car near him to talk to a farmer plowing his field. Van Riper broke his nearly month long silence and asked the man for a ride, stuttering. The man laughed at him, which made Van Riper very angry. But that experience also changed Van Riper's life when the man told him that he was a stutterer, too, but too old and tired to stutter so hard any more so he "just let the words leak out" now. Somewhere I also have an old handout from a state convention in Michigan where Van Riper talked about a man named "Jim" who was in prison and decided to be mute for over a year rather than stutter. Van Riper also sites Freund (p. 139-140, Psychopathology and the problems of stuttering, Springfield, IL, 1966) talking about "hysterical stuttering" where Freund says, "Histories of complete mutism as the initiating feature are not uncommon." (from Van Riper's The Nature of Stuttering, 2nd edition, p. 64). So there are historical references, which are interesting. But according the the DSM IV, selective mutism is "not diagnosed if the disturance is better accounted for by embarrassment related to having a Communication Disorders (e.g. Stuttering. . . ."