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Book Announcement: The Pebble in the Shoe
Release Date: May 2000
Oral Habits Linked to Speech, Learning, Dental Problems
Almost 46 million Americans struggle through their days with stuttering, articulation and other speech disorders. While the symptoms are many, the cause of each disorder often is determined to be unknown.
In a new book, the unknown is brought into clearer focus. Based on 40 years of professional practice, speech pathologist John Streicher reveals that in nearly every case he has faced -- from those in young children to adults -- the cause was an oral habit. Each person's problem, he says, is distinct, but each is traceable to a habit involving each sufferer's mouth. And Streicher tracked down each problem -- many times it was something so obvious that even young patients and adults overlooked their own problem in initial therapy sessions -- and cured it.
The Pebble in the Shoe: The Causes of Distress and Pain in the Human Body (WinePress Publishing) takes the reader through Streicher's life. It is co-written by Karen Alexander, a speech pathologist who studied under him and operated her own clinic in Texas for several years.
The book is written at a level accessible to both parents and professionals. It tells of Streicher's motivations and how many of his discoveries were realized. It details his frustrations during college with professors who turned away his cause-probing questions and theories. He discusses many of the cases he dealt with in his southern California practice, including many that were referred to him by dentists and pathologists who had reached dead ends in their efforts. And he touches upon his years of rejection by many professionals in the speech and dental fields whom he most wanted to listen.
The Pebble in the Shoe is filled with clinical results that challenge the symptom-treating approaches widely used in the educational, medical and dental fields. The book is about the cause, the connection, and the cure for many common complaints. Among the problems: abnormal speech and voice; misshapen arches; crooked facial features; poor alignment of teeth; headaches; jaw-related problems such as TMJ; and learning and emotional problems.
For years, Alexander said, medical, dental, rehabilitation and educational professionals have treated symptoms as separate problems. With the causes usually unknown, she said, a variety of methods and medicines have been used, often without success, to help people cope, compensate and control their complaints.
"I developed a therapy program to put struggling individuals on the right course for learning and speaking," Streicher said. "The therapy takes an individual back to where troubles began and helps the bodily systems to reintegrate."
Streicher, early in his career, recognized that a speech defect is a symptom that must have a cause. He could see that all types of speech problems were being treated as conditions, and that all research had been -- and continues to be -- geared to finding ways to identify and treat symptoms instead of finding the cause.
His work -- done in schools and as a private practitioner -- led him to conclude that each person he treated was doing something that interfered with the body's reflex nervous system. "That something," Alexander said, "is the speaker himself who is putting an object or body part into or against the mouth habitually.
"For some, the injurious habit starts in the womb, but it can be acquired at any age," she said. Among the possible habits are sucking or biting on fingers and nails, and on toes, blankets, pieces of clothing and skin. Other items have included jewelry, hair clips, pens, carpenter's nails and toys.
Streicher has found that many children who suck on cloth literally wipe out their speech. The cloth habit could involve a favored blanket, T-shirt material, or a stuffed toy. Fingernail biting, even for a short period like the first week of kindergarten, is enough to set up a "fingernail-biting pattern" that causes a jaw shift during speech and a secondary habit of gritting or grinding teeth.
Oral habits often cause teeth to become crooked. Orthodontists currently treat some 4.4 million people a year, including 1 million adults, with braces costing an average of $3,000 to $4,000. Streicher's therapy finds and removes the bad habits, leading to a self correction of the oral structure. Teeth return to normal without braces.
In many of the adult cases he has faced, Streicher has discovered that the way a person deals with stress -- by tightening muscles or clenching teeth -- affects speech and communication abilities.
Throughout the book, Streicher also describes the emotional release that individuals often obtained when they were able to let go of their habit and tension patterns. He explains how emotions connect to and are held captive by these physical patterns.
Each person's individual habit, Streicher argues, is done consistently and persistently to the point that a person's body has to change the way it functions to survive. The root problem, like a hidden pebble in a shoe, he says, sets off a chain reaction of other ailments and yet more symptoms. If not recognized early, the snowballing problems eventually can lead to behavioral problems for children and job-coping barriers for adults, the authors say.
A new web site (http://www.streicherpublications.com) provides additional information about Streicher's work, plus excerpts from The Pebble in the Shoe and an upcoming book devoted to stuttering; and ordering information for a softbound copy of the 192-page book.
The book may be purchased by mail by sending a check or money order for $24.95 to: Streicher Publications, P.O. Box 765, Flagstaff, AZ 86002. The price includes shipping to U.S. locations.
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SOURCES: John Streicher, Author, Speech Pathologist, (520) 773-9795, [email protected] Karen Alexander, Author, Speech Pathologist, (304) 927-0175, [email protected]
(Media Advisory: A limited number of complimentary softbound copies of The Pebble in the Shoe will be available for review purposes. PDF versions for review purposes only also are available upon request. To request a review copy, contact Jim Barlow, 217-366-2943, or send a request via e-mail to [email protected])
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