(A research note about his name-- Bryng Bryngelson was the seventh of 11 children of two Swedish immigrants who settled in MN. His father, the Rev. August, was a larger than life, itinerant preacher of the Swedish Covenant church who traveled the Northwest region of upper MN and WI. Bryng was christened Arthur Reuben Bryngelson. Variously he was called Reuben or R. A. until he changed his name to Bryng in 1921 at the request of his father who upon visiting his homeland in 1920 and learning that Bryng had been a name in every generation of his family, asked this son to become Bryng. It was a very close family of mostly boys.
Bryngelson received the Carleton Alumni award, written up as follows in the Carleton Alumni Magazine:
At Minnesota he established the speech clinic in the Department of Pediatrics, and became clinical professor of pediatrics. In 1945 he founded the Aphasia Clinic at the V. A. Hospital. In 1960 Dr. Bryngelson was named professor emeritus, speech and clinical professor of pediatrics at the University. He has been visiting professor at Northwestern, the universities of Florida, Buffalo, Syracuse, Hawaii and Colorado.
Dr. Bryngelson, whose 1960 retirement was short-lived, is author or co-author of Know Yourself, Speech in the Classroom, Getting Next to Yourself, and Clinical Group Therapy for Problem People, and over 100 articles. He is also past president of the American Speech and Hearing Association. He holds, among others, membership in Sigma Xi, the American Medical Writers Association, American Men of Science, and Leaders in American Education.
Professor Bryngelson is widely known as one of the world's pioneers in the field of speech pathology. He has also done considerable research on the subjects of stuttering and left-handedness--its genetics and relationship to communications disorders. While contemplating full retirement, he is presently at work on still another book.
Bernice White, Ed., editor, Who's Who in Minnesota - 1958 (Seattle, WA: Hugh L. White, 1958). included the following biographical information:
BRYNGELSON, BRYNG
Speech Pathologist
b Otisco Minn Apr 22 1892; s of August and Ida (Nelson); m Arminda Mowre of Mpls Sept 13 1922; ch, William Mowre; m Virginia Caldwell 1948; 3 grandch; educ, pub schs Minn & Wis, Carleton Coll BA 1916, State U of Ia MA 1926, PhD 1931, pg wk U of Wis & Yale U; hs prin Belfield ND 1916-17, Fosston Minn 1917-18; instr Carleton Coll Northfield Minn 1918-19; prof Hanover Coll Hanover Ind 1922-24; instr State U of Ia Ia City 1924-26; F U of Wis Madison 1926-27; prof & dir Speech Clinic U of M Mpls 1927-51; prof of speech & dir speech path U of M 1951---; consultant VA Aphasia Clinic 1946---; mem NW Ped Soc, Psi Chi, Amer Speech & Hearing Assn; p pres & treas ibid; mem Minn Soc of Speech Clinicians, Sigma Xi, Bd of Edits Midw Speech Publ, Speech Assn of Amer, Amer Med Writers Assn; p mem AAAS, Amer Psych Assn, Amer Genetic Assn; visiting prof U of Colo summers 1938-42m NW Univ summer 1946; exch prof U of Fla 1950; serv Inf Hdqrs Co WW 1; auth bks & over 100 articles on speech; hobbies, travel, sports, summer lake life; Indep; home, 4932 S Oliver Ave; ofc U of M, Mpls.
While at the University of Minnesota, in addition to developing a speech clinic there, pursuing a life-long interest in stuttering, and publishing an articulation test (the Bryngelson-Glaspey) that I used in my own training program at the University of Wisconsin in Madison (JAK), Bryngelson is remembered for his research on left-handedness. "After 30 years of research with left-handedness, Dr. Bryng Bryngelson of the University of Minnesota estimated 35 percent of all children would develop into left-handers if no one pressured them to use their right hands." from Welcome to my Lefty page
Dave Williams, writes in Wendell Johnson and Charles Van Riper: A Remembrance of Them and Their Era, "In August 1929 he went to see Bryng Bryngelson at the University of Minnesota. Bryngelson was developing a speech clinic there, and was especially interested in stuttering. He put Van Riper through a battery of tests and concluded that a change of handedness was called for. He also told Van Riper about the stuttering program at Iowa under Travis, and recommended that he go there for therapy -- Bryngelson himself was going to Iowa the following year to work on his Ph. D. in speech pathology."
One of Bryngelson's important contributions to the field of stuttering therapy was his concept of "voluntary stuttering." Both Van Riper and Wendell Johnson were influenced by the work of Bryngelson at Iowa in the early 1930's. (Bloodstein, Handbook on Stuttering).
Van Riper recalls some of his therapy sessions with Bryngelson (The Treatment of Stuttering, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1973, p. 365).
At Iowa Bryngelson's Ph.D. thesis was supervised by Wendell Johnson.
Bryngelson, Bryng. A Phono-Photographic Analysis of the Vocal Disturbances in Stuttering. 1931. Thesis from University of Iowa
last modified December 9, 2012