The Monster Study was a non-consensual experiment performed on 22 orphan children in Davenport, Iowa in 1939 about stuttering.
It was conducted by Wendell Johnson, University of Iowa, with the physical experiment being performed by his graduate student Mary Tudor.
The study was never published, and as a result was relatively unknown until a 2001 San Jose Mercury News article conducted by an investigative reporter, Jim Dyer.
A lawsuit took place and the seven test subjects from the "negative-reinforcement" group were awarded $925,000 by the State of Iowa for lifelong psychological and emotional scars.
The nickname "Monster Study" was coined in the 40s and 50s by those associated with the Stuttering Research Program at University of Iowa.
Dr. Wendell Johnson, a stutterer himself, is said to have created the thesis for this experience, and it was performed by his graduate student Mary Tudor.
"[3][4] The researchers had four questions in mind when carrying out the study: 256 children were screened by Tudor and five other graduate students who served as judges.
[5] The subjects, along with the workers of the orphanage, were not told the intent of Tudor's research, and they believed these were speech therapy sessions.
During this period, they assigned numbers to the children, such as "Case No 15 Experimental Group IIA..."[6] The experimental period lasted from January until late May 1939, and the actual intervention consisted of Tudor driving to Davenport from Iowa City every few weeks and talking with each child for about 45 minutes.
After her second session with 5-year-old Norma Jean Pugh, Tudor wrote, "It was very difficult to get her to speak, although she spoke very freely the month before."
She wrote to Johnson about the orphan children in a letter dated April 22, 1940, "I believe that in time they … will recover, but we certainly made a definite impression on them."
However, due to the stuttering clinic at the University of Iowa attracting a lot of leading researchers, it was an open secret.
[1] In 2001, 62 years after the experiment was performed, an investigative reporter, Jim Dyer, for San Jose Mercury News published a series of articles after finding The Monster Study tucked away in the basement at the University of Iowa.
He compiled and released a series of articles, leading to the unpublished experiment reaching national news.
The University of Iowa's "Wendell Johnson Speech and Hearing Clinic" is still one of the driving educational centers for stuttering research.
After the release of articles by San Jose Mercury News, the University of Iowa publicly apologized for the Monster Study in 2001.
[8] Jim Dyer resigned from his position at San Jose Mercury News after publishing the series of articles about the Monster Study.
[9] These comments stemmed from an archivist, Jim Hendrickson, stating that Dyer told him he was doing research for his dissertation and never mentioned he was a journalist.
San Jose Mercury News refused to correct their earlier assertion about the archives being open to journalists.
A book Ethics: A Case Study from Fluency was written and published in 2005 to provide an impartial scientific evaluation.
The panel of authors in the book consists mostly of speech pathologists who fail to reach any consensus on either the ethical ramifications or scientific consequences of the Monster Study.
[citation needed] The podcast All In The Mind had on guest Jonty Claypool, a person who stutters, who criticized the study as horrifying.
For the plaintiffs, we hope and believe it will help provide closure relating to experiences from long ago and to memories going back almost 70 years.
For all parties, it ends long-running, difficult and costly litigation that only would have run up more expenses and delayed resolution to plaintiffs who are in their seventies and eighties.
[20] Today, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association prohibits experimentation on children when there exists a significant chance of causing lasting harmful consequences.