Elmer Lawton Kenyon

1865-1945

Elmer Lawton Kenyon was an otolaryngologist who studied with Hermann Gutzmann Sr. in Germany. He established a speech and hearing clinic at Rush Medical College in Chicago in 1910. His specialties were stammering (stuttering) and voice. He favored a physiological theory to explain the cause of “stammering” arguing that stuttering occurs when there is to much physiological tension in the peripheral speech musculature or when the psychological control of the sound is deficient (crude, inadequate, or poorly coordinated).

Kenyon was one of the 25 charter members of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association, and served as its president from 1929 to 1932.

Writings of Elmer Kenyon, arranged chronologically

Kenyon, E. (1906). The treatment of stammering. Medical Record.

Kenyon, E. (1910). Can stammering be treated successfully through the agency of the public school? Journal of American Medical Association, 54, 1859-1861.

Kenyon, E. (1913). The nasal voice with reference to its bearing on the practice of rhino-laryngology. Annals of Otology, Rhinology, and Laryngology, 22, 1110-1120.

Kenyon, E. (1914). Case of injured palate with stammering. Illinois Medical Journal, 26, 623-624.

Kenyon, E. (1914). Problem of the stammering child. Illinois Medical Journal, 26, 95-101.

Kenyon, K. (1917). The stammerer and army service. Volta Review, 19, 565-566.

Kenyon, E. (1918). Problem of stammering and its solution. Lancet, 38, 555-561.

Kenyon, E. (1919). Nature and origin of stammering. Laryngoscope, 29, 639-656.

Kenyon, E. (1919). Stammering as a disorder of speech dependent on conditions of child development. American Journal of Diseases of Children, 18, 537-545.

(reprinted in Volta Review, 22, 39-45, with a discussion by W. B. Swift Volta Review, 20, 510-518, 1920).

Kenyon, E. (1922). Significance of the extrinsic musculature of the larynx: Its relationship to certain disorders of the voice. Journal of American Medical Association, 79, 428-430.

Kenyon, E. (1924). A broader approach to unsolved problems in laryngeal action. Laryngoscope, 34, 901-911.

Kenyon, E. (1925). The speech complications involved in certain types of inadequate palate, especially congenital short palate, with exhibition of patients. Annals of Otology, Rhinology, and Laryngology, 34, 887-900.

Kenyon, E. (1926). Speech standards in the theater, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 12, 196-199.

Kenyon, E. (1927). Relation of oral articulative movements of speech and of extrinsic laryngeal musculature in general to the function of the vocal cord. Archives of Otolaryngology, 5, 481-501.

Kenyon, E. (1928). Action and control of the peripheral organs of speech. Journal of American Medical Association, 91, 1341-1346.

Kenyon, E. (1929). Psychophysiologic principles underlying improvement in vocal pitch, tension and quality of the deafened; with the presentation of an effectual physiologic substitute for lost hearing in vocal management. Volta Review, 31, 129-141.

Kenyon, E. (1931). The treatment of stammering, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 17, 226-235.

Kenyon, E. (1931). Peripheral physical inhibition of speech. An essential phenomenon and an important causal factor of stammering (stuttering). Oralism and Auralism, 10, 15-31 (parts 1 and 2).

Kenyon, E. (1931). Conscious detailed psycho-muscular control of speech production as an effective (if not necessary) basis for all manner of psychologic treatment of stammering. In Proceedings of the American Speech Correction Association, 1, 176-187.

Kenyon, E. (1938). A suggestion for the cooperation in an effort to lessen the degree of nasality in cleft palate patients. Abstract in the Proceedings of the American Speech Correction Association, 8, 84-86.

Kenyon, E. (1940). A critical examination of the foundations of the “recoil of the vowel” theory of the cause of the impediment of the speech in stammering. Journal of Speech Disorders, 4, 97-112.  (Takes issue with Bluemel’s theory of stuttering. See Bluemel’s response In JSD, 1940, 5, 305-308—Stammering and Inhibition).

Kenyon, E. (1940). The question of our ethics and our standards, Journal of Speech Disorders, 4, 302.

Kenyon, E. (1942). The etiology of stammering: An examination into certain recent studies, with a glance into the future. Journal of Speech Disorders, 6, 1-12.

Kenyon, E. (1943). The etiology of stammering, Journal of Speech Disorders, 7, 79-104.

Kenyon, E. (1944). The etiology of stammering: The psychophysiologic facts which concerns the production of speech sounds and of stammering, Journal of Speech Disorders, 8, 337-348.