Sarah Miller

In 1939, speech pathologist Wendell Johnson believed that stuttering was a learned behavior, not a biological defect. To prove it, he conducted an experiment at an orphanage in Iowa. He took twenty-two children, half of whom spoke perfectly fine, and subjected them to intense negative therapy, telling them they were developing a stutter and must not speak unless they could do so perfectly. Known today as the "Monster Study, " this experiment ruined the lives of children who were shamed into silence.
This book exposes the dark side of academia, where the pursuit of a hypothesis overrode basic humanity. It tracks the lifelong trauma of the subjects ("The Mary Tudor group") and the decades-long cover-up by a university that knew it had crossed the line.