May Kirk Scripture

1864-1945

May Kirk Scripture was one of the founding members of the profession in the US. She was a prolific writer, addressing many types of clinical speech disorders, including cleft palate, stuttering, and voice.

May Kirk Scripture was born in Nova Scotia in 1864. She was educated in New York City and attended Hunter College. She studied vocal music in Berlin, where she met and married Edward Wheeler Scripture, in 1890. Over the next years she became a distinguished singer, a mother of three children, and wrote articles on the teaching of reading and writing. Her primer, written for children, became a standard first reader in many parts of the United States (1899).

The Scripture family returned to the United States in 1890, and shortly thereafter May began teaching speech correction at Teachers College, Columbia University. She later separated from her husband, but continued to work with him at Vanderbilt Clinic at the Columbia Medical Center where he had established a speech clinic. Mrs. Scripture continued her speech therapy practices as a private practitioner and in the Vanderbilt clinic in NYC for a time, and then taught speech correction at the State University of Iowa, where she became connected to the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station.

In 1938, May Kirk Scripture retired to Santa Monica, California. She died there in 1945.

Laryngoscope, a journal where May Kirk Scripture published a number of articles in 1918, describes her affiliation thusly:

Instructor in Speech and Director of Speech Correction, Neurological Department, College of Physicians and surgeons, Columbia University and Assistant on the Medical Staff of New York City Children's Hospitals and Schools, Randall's Island.

Writings of May Kirk Scripture and colleagues, arranged chronologically

Scripture, M. K. (1897) In a Japanese way. Outlook, 55, 556-557.

Scripture, M. K. (1899/1902). The Baldwin Primer. NY: American Book Company.

Scripture, M. K. (1916). A case of re-educating speech after cleft palate operation. American Medicine, 11, 116-117.

Scripture, M. K. & Glogau, Otto (1916). Speech conflict-a natural consequence in cosmopolitan cities-as an etiological factor in stuttering. A preliminary report based on 200 cases. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 42, 37-46. 43: 139-149.

Scripture, M. K. (1916). Correct speech. Iowa State University.

Scripture, M. K. & Jackson, Eugene (1917). Rational treatment of stuttering. Laryngoscope, 27, 74-80.

Scripture, M. K. & Glogauo, Debra (1917). Left handedness as an etiological factor in speech defects. Laryngoscope, 27.

Scripture, M. K. (1917) Stammering-a responsibility. Laryngoscope, 27.

Scripture, M. K. (1918). Etiology of speech defects. Laryngoscope, 28, 12-46.

Scripture, M, K. (1918). Diagnosis of speech defects. Laryngoscope, 28, 78-88

Scripture, M. K. (1918). Stuttering and stammering (lisping). Laryngoscope, 28, 156-174.

Scripture, M. K. (1918). Aphasia. Laryngoscope, 28, 408-415

Scripture, M. K. (1918). Abnormal voices; falsetto, nasality, hoarseness, cleft-palate, speech, choreatic speech, anarthria, the voice of the deaf and the mental deficient. Laryngoscope, 28, 457-464.

Scripture, M.K. (1918). Phonetics in relation to speech effects. Laryngoscope, 28, 735-743.

Scripture, M. K. (1918). Therapy of speech defects. Laryngoscope, 28, 817-848.

Scripture, M. K. (1918). Speech conflict. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases. Jan & Feb.

Scripture, M. K. (1918). Speech defects and some methods for their treatment. Ohio Education Monthly, 67, 490-493.

Scripture, M. K. & Jackson, Eugene (1919). A manual of exercises for the correction of speech disorders. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Co.

Scripture, M. K. (January, 1919). Negligent speech. Laryngoscope.

Scripture, M. K. (1920). The treatment of speech defects, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 6, 1-17.

Scripture, M. K. (1922) Some theories concerning stuttering and stammering, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 8, 145-155.

Scripture, M. K.& Kittredge, Winifred. (March 1923). An attempt to determine another etiological cause of stuttering through objective measurements. Journal of Educational Psychology.

Scripture, M. K. & Glassburg, John (1925). The hygiene of speech. National Education Association Journal, 14, 279.

Scripture, M. K. & Glassburg, John (1925). The use of relaxation in the treatment of speech disorders. Oralism and Auralism, 4, 124-128.

Scripture, M. K. & Glassburg, John (1925). Stammering and stuttering from the medical viewpoint. Archives of Pediatrics, 42, 513-522.

Scripture, M. K. & Glassburg, John A. (1926). The use of vocal gymnastics in the treatment of speech disorders. Oralism and Auralism, 5.

Scripture, M. K. (1926). Pathology and reeducation of speech disorders. Quarterly Journal of Speech Education, 12, 148-160, 167-175. (suggestions for intervention with children)

Scripture, M. K. & Glassburg, John A. (1926). Behavioristic attitudes caused by speech disorders. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 63, 17-22.

Scripture, M. K. & Glassburg, John A. (1926). The use of breathing in the treatment of speech disorders. St. Louis Mo (reprint). Reprinted also in Oralism and Auralism, 1926, 5.

Scripture, M. K. (1931). The practical clinical re-education of speech disturbances. Journal of Expression, 5, 65-86.