Speech Pathology

Professor Herrick's further criticism, "The concept of physiological gradients and dominance as applied to speech pathology works out in a very suggestive way and merits further study," cannot be given sufficient emphasis. Speech, the complex, integrated psycho-neuromuscular process, cannot be dismissed with a simple explanation in which the peripheral structures of speech "commonly divided into three functional groups, the breathing, the vocal, and the articulatory" coordinate and are "synthesized into the configuration known as normal speech." Assuming that speech is an instinctive process and there is present the necessary motivation and mentality for thinking out material for expression, the whole process is still dependent upon a hierarchic (cerebral) control. Appreciative of this point of view, Travis, in his attempt to attach deservedly 'extreme significance' to the cerebral function of speech, has been led to accept an explanation in terms of a dominant gradient of excitation.