Diagnostic Taxonomy of Stinchfield and Robbins

Stinchfield, S. and S. Robbins (1931). A dictionary of terms dealing with disorders of speech. Boston, Expression Company.

Stinchfield worked on a nomenclature committee of the American Society for the Study of Disorders of Speech (later to evolve into ASHA, the American Speech and Hearing Association). The committee was chaired by Samuel Robbins. The group was assigned to established common terminology for diagnostic categories. They published their dictionary of terms in 1931. Stinchfield reflects on how the list was developed:

"The attempt is made in this arrangement to give the student an outline of practically all of the commonly found disorders of speech, such as appear in home, school, and speech clinic, and to so group them that they may come under one of seven main headings: dysarthria, dyslalia, dyslogia, dysphasia, dysphemia, dysphonia, or dysrhythmia.It was necessary for the committee on terminology to coin a number of new terms having old prefixes, frequently defining the older and better-known terms as synonymous with the coined ones" (Stinchfield, 1933, p. 29).

Classification of the Disorders of Speech

Tentative Abridged Classification of Disorders of Speech

  1. Dysarthria. Defects of articulation due to lesions of the nervous system.
    1. Anarthria. Inarticulateness
    2. Bradyarthria. Labored speech
    3. Mogiarthria. Ataxic speech
  2. Dyslalia. Functional and organic defects in articulation (lalling, oral inaccuracy, phonetic defects)
    1. Agitolalia. Cluttering
    2. Alalia. Mutism
      1. Alalia cophotica. Deaf mutism
      2. Alalia organica. Mutism due to organic pathology
      3. Alalia physiologica. Physiologic mutism
      4. Alalia prolongata-Delayed speech
        1. auditory dumbness
        2. hearing mutism
        3. mutitas prolonga
    3. Barbaralalia. Foreign dialect (Note. Foreign accent comes under dysrhythmia.)
      1. Provincialism
    4. Barylalia. Cluttering
    5. Idiolalia. Invented language
      1. Idioglossia.
      2. Pathological language
    6. Paralalia. Lisping, sound substitution
    7. Pedolalia. Infantile perseveration
    8. Rhinolalia. Nasal, inarticulate speech.
      1. Rhinolalia megauvulica, due to elongation of uvula
      2. Rhinolalia microuranica, due to insufficient length of soft palate.
      3. Rhinolalia uranoschismatica, cleft plate speech
      4. Rhinolalia reanotraumatica, due to palatal injury
    9. Uraniscolalia. Cleft palate speech
  3. Dyslogia. Difficulty in the expression of ideas by speech, due to psychoses.
    1. Agrammalogia. Incoherent speech.
    2. Alogia. Absence of ideas
      1. Alogia idiotica. Idiotic mutism
    3. Bradylogia. Sluggish speech
      1. bradyphrasia
    4. Catalogia. Verbigeration
      1. Echolalia. Echoic speech
      2. Stereotypy
    5. Parylogia. Irrelevant speech.
    6. Polylogia. Excessive loquacity, logorrhea
      1. Logorrhea (speech pressure)
      2. Polyphrasia (blustering, punning, rhyming speech)
      3. Hyperphrasia
    7. Tachylogia. Morbid rapidity of speech: Agitologia
      1. Tachyphrasia
  4. Dysphasia. Impairment of language to weakened mental imagery through disease, shock, or injury
    1. Motor aphasia
      1. Agraphia
      2. Amusia
      3. Amima
      4. Logaphasia. Articulatory aphasia
        1. Aphemia
        2. Articulatory word amnesia
        3. Mental dumbness
        4. Motor vocal aphasia
        5. Psychic dumbness
      5. Motor alexia.
    2. Sensory aphasia.
      1. Auditory aphasia
        1. Mind deafness
          1. Sensory amusia (a. tone-deafness).
          2. Logokyphosis. Word deafness
        2. psychic deafness
      2. Visual aphasia
        1. Intellectual blindness
        2. Mental blindness
        3. Psychic blindness
          1. Agnosia
          2. Alexia. Word blindness
    3. Mixed aphasia
      1. Agrammaphasia. Syntactical aphasia. Word salad speech
      2. Aphasia. Speechlessness
      3. Bradyphasia. Groping speech
      4. Cataphasia. Repetitious speech
      5. Paraphasia. Word substitution
    4. Total aphasia
      1. Aphasia universalis
  5. Dysphemia. Variable disorders of speech due to psychoneuroses. Variable nervous disorders of speech due to psychoneuroses.
    1. Agitophemia. Nervous, agitated speech
    2. Aphemia. Dumbness
      1. Aphemia hysterica. Hysterical mutism.
      2. Aphemia pathematica. Due to fright or passion (lalophobia)
      3. Aphemia plastica. Voluntary mutism
      4. Aphemia spasmodica. Spasmodic dumbness
    3. Paraphemia. Neurotic lisping.
    4. Spasmophemia. Stammering. Stuttering
      1. Aphonia spastica
      2. Broken rhythm
      3. Cluttering
      4. Convulsive hesitation
      5. Dysarthria
      6. Dysphemia
      7. Dysphonia
      8. Dysphonia spastica
      9. Linguae hesitantia
      10. Logospasm
      11. Moglalia
      12. Molilalia
      13. Spasmodic speech
      14. Spastic aphonia
      15. Speech blocking
      16. Speech hesitation
      17. Speech stumbling
        1. Spasmophemia clonica. Stuttering.
        2. Spasmophemia cryptica. Silent stammering
        3. Spasmophemia tonica. Stammering
          1. Dysarthria literalis.
    5. Tachyphemia. Nervous rapid speech
  6. Dysphonia. Defects of voice. This includes all disorders of phonation due to organic or functional disorders of vocal cords, or to defective respiration.
    1. Aphonia. Absence of voice. Voicelessness
      1. Aphonia apophatica, due to negativism (also a dyslogia or a dysphemia
      2. Aphonia hysterica. Hysterical aphonia (also a dysphemia)
      3. Aphonia organica. Due to structural anomalies of the laryns.
      4. Aphonia paralytica (also a dysarthria0
      5. Aphonia paranoica (also a dyslogia)
      6. Aphonia pathematica, due to fright or passion (also a dyslogia or a dysphemia)
        1. Phonophobia
      7. Aphonia spastica. Spastic aphonia (also a dysphemia)
      8. Aphonia traumatica. Due to injury to the larynx.
    2. Baryphonia. Thick voice
      1. Dull voice
    3. Gutterophonia. Gutteral voice
      1. Throaty voice
    4. Hypophonia. Whispered voice. Whispering.
      1. Voluntary whispering
    5. Idiophonia. Individual characteristics of voice
      1. Acute voice
      2. Coarce
      3. Flat
      4. Gloomy
      5. Grave
      6. Growling
      7. Hard
      8. Harsh
      9. Infantile
      10. Lour
      11. Monotonous
      12. Muffled
      13. Passive
      14. Rasping
      15. Raucous
      16. Rough
      17. Sepulchral
      18. Shrill
      19. Somber
      20. Strident
      21. Subdued
      22. Toneless
      23. Whining
    6. Megaphonia. Morbidly loud voice.
    7. Metallophonia. Metallic voice
      1. Grating voice
    8. Microphonia. Weak voice.
    9. Paraphonia. Morbid alteration of voice
      1. Paraphonia adenopathica, due to certain glandular diseases
      2. Paraphonia amazonica. Virago speech (in women).
      3. Paraphonia athymica. Change of voice in depression.
      4. Paraphonia copiaca. Change of voice in fatigue.
      5. Paraphonia eunuchoidia. Falsetto quality of voice in eunuchs.
      6. Paraphonia geratica. High cracked voice of old age.
      7. Paraphonia microischica. Change of voice in lowered vitality
      8. Paraphonia neurasthenical. Neurasthenic voice.
      9. Paraphonia pubetica. Harsh, irregular, breaking voice of puberty.
        1. Dysphonia puberum.
    10. Pneumaphonia. Breathy voice.
      1. Aspirate voice
    11. Rhinophonia. Nasal voice.
    12. Tanyphonia. Thin voice
      1. Pinched voice
    13. Trachyphonia. Hoarseness.
    14. Tromophonia. Tremulous voice.
  7. Dysrhythmia. Defects of rhythm other than stuttering.
    1. Dysrhythmia pneumaphrasia. Defects of breath grouping
    2. Dysrhythnmia prosodia. Defects of stress placement
    3. Dysrhythmia tonia. Defects of inflection.

Stinchfield also describes a classification of dyslexia, reading disorders "closely associated with speech defects" (Stinchfield, 1933, pp. 32-34)

  1. Alexia. Complete inability to read anything.
    1. Pathological, due to an actual lesion.
    2. Psychological.
      1. Anorthographia. Spelling disability due t conditions imposed upon the child to which he cannot adjust.
  2. Barylexia. Careless in reading with marked elision and assimilation as in speech defect known as "cluttering."
  3. Bradylexia. Slow recognition of words, a stage or degree of psychological alexia.
  4. Catalexia. Re-reading, repetition.
  5. Palinlexia. Reading backward.
  6. Paralexia. Constant or intermittend letter substitutions
    1. Paralexia anatropica. Inversions, A for V
    2. Paralexia antitropica. Reversals, b for d
    3. Paralexia metathetica. Transpositions, ad for da.
    4. Paralexia tychotropica. Random letter substitution, l for p

Causes of dyslexia

  1. Agnotica, due to unknown or uncertain causes.
  2. Amphidexotica, due to ambidexterity and the resulting lack of unilateral cerebral dominance.
  3. Anopsica, due to total blindness.
  4. Aphasica, due t impaired mental imagery in aphasia or dysphasia
  5. Brachymnesica, due to apparent or initial lower memory
  6. Cophotica, due to defective hearing
  7. Dysopsia, due to defective vision
  8. Dysstereoptica, due to deficiencies of fusion
  9. Idiotica, due to mental deficiency
  10. Emotio-pathematica, due to emotionalism
  11. Pathologica, due to a lesion which is usually found in the left supremarginal and angular gyri.

Among the chief causes of defective vision the following are of special importance in dealing with the non-reader child (p. 34, Stinchfield, 1933).

  1. Hypermetropia or far sightedness.
  2. Myopia or near sightedness
  3. Astigma or astigmatism
  4. Heterophoria or tendency of visual lines to deviate from parallelism
  5. Heterotropia. Actual deviation of visual lines from parallelism
  6. Ambylopia. Dimness of vision without organic lesion of the eye.
  7. Scotoma. A blind area in the retina.
  8. Anopsia. Total blindness.

Deficiencies in fusion are primarily due to the following

  1. Anorthopia or distorted vision.
  2. Heterophoria
  3. Heterotropia
  4. Ambylopia
  5. Monoptopathia. Neural lesions affecting one eye or its neural connections.