Ep. 70-Human Experiments: The Children of Iowa's "Monster Study"

What happens when authority tells a child their voice is broken? We dive into the chilling story of the “Monster Study,” a 1939 experiment in Davenport, Iowa, where researchers labeled and shamed orphans to test a theory about learned stuttering. No jump scares—just real harm: scripted corrections, public interruptions, and the slow erosion of confidence that led some kids to stop speaking. Decades later, the buried thesis surfaced, survivors spoke up, and a settlement acknowledged what ethics should have prevented from the start.

We trace how the study was structured—four groups split by fluency and feedback—and why its central claim fell apart even as its damage endured. The conversation widens to the power of labels today: ADHD, “slow reader,” “troublemaker,” and how naming differences can either unlock support or cement limits. We share practical, humane ways to give feedback that builds skills without shame, plus a strengths-based look at neurodiversity: channeling intense focus into mastery, using multimodal learning, and reframing “deficits” as different routes to the same destination.

This episode blends true-crime tension with research ethics, speech pathology, and lived experience. Expect frank talk about consent, vulnerable populations, and the thin line between science and harm, alongside hopeful strategies for parents and teachers who want to raise confident communicators. If words can wound, they can also mend—and we can choose which ones we hand to the next generation.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review with one takeaway you’ll use this week. Your voice helps others find theirs.

Sources:

Mary Tudor (1939) – Original Thesis

> The full research document from the University of Iowa — where it all began.
https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.9z9lxfgn

https://iro.uiowa.edu/esploro/outputs/graduate/An-experimental-study-of-the-effect/9983777385602771/filesAndLinks?utm_source=chatgpt.com&index=0

https://cvltnation.com/the-monster-study-how-doctors-tortured-orphans-in-the-name-of-medicine/?

Reynolds G. The Stuttering Doctor’s ‘Monster Study [Internet]. The New York Times; 2003 [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/magazine/the-stuttering-doctor-s-monster-study.html 

Transcript

Cold Open & October Vibes

SPEAKER_02 0:00

We're diving into one of the darkest unethical psychological experiments in American history. This is Hold My Sweet Tea.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

I'm Holly and I'm Pearl. We're definitely kooky and a little creepy.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Well, a lot creepy, but still. Not creepy in like a way, but like creepy in like I like skulls and spider webs way.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

We're not like walking down the street and you go, oh my god, let me get on the other. Everybody's usually going, can you take our picture to me? So obviously not creepy enough.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Not at all. But welcome again. Spooker Susan. Yay, October. We love October. I just am ready for October weather, though. Not to talk about the weather, but like I'm I'm here and I'm ready for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yeah. I mean, I don't even know what we call October wetter. Weather. Weather. Wetter weather. Wetter weather. It's not really wetter. It's sweater weather. I don't even know if it's sweater. No, it's not. It's more sweating during the day and then like nice, cool at night. It's sweaty weather.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

It's still sweaty weather. I mean, look, I lived up in Oregon for a while and we had seasons, and I was like, this is what it feels like to have fall. Yeah, you it was so nice. You got spoiled.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

I know to the land of seasons. Yes, it was so great. So, what kind of crazy thing you got us getting into today?

SPEAKER_02 2:25

We are doing an or episode on the monster study.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Monster!

SPEAKER_02 2:33

And you're like, ooh, monsters, I'm here for that. But it's a different type of monster. The human monster. The human monster. Yes. Like I am a horror fan. I know you are. We love some good horror movies. But I think my favorite type of scary movie is definitely psychological thrillers.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

I mean, the twistier, the better. Like the narratives are intellectually stimulating. It's like your brain's going pop, pop, pop, pop.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

You get trying to figure it out.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Yes. You get like this dopamine rush, and you're like, yes, I can get into the killer's mind.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Right. Me and the pretend adult daughter watched one of those. And literally, we both thought it was someone different. And in the end, it ended up being neither of us, right? Oh how did you do that? You tricked me.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Right. And they're always like eventually resolved by a revelation of truth. And it's a shocking plot twist. And you're like, bruh, I didn't see that coming at all. But that's what makes psychological thrillers so like awesome, you know. Yeah. But today's case isn't a movie or a novel. It's real life. And it happened to children.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Oh no.

Orphanage Setting & Power Imbalance

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Yeah. That's the bad part about it. So, you know, imagine being a child living in an orphanage. That's hard enough as it is. Like being alone is heartbreaking. You're abandoned. You've lost your family, your home, your sense of safety. You don't know what's going to happen from one day to the next. Now the adults that you trust the most, your caretakers, your teachers, they lean down and tell you there's something wrong with you. No. Your voice is broken. Every word you speak is a mistake. And worst of all, they make you believe it. That's some psychological trauma. That's some bullshit. Busheet. For real. A bull sheet. And this particular thing was called the monster study. And it happened not in some distant country under like a dictatorship where you think like they were torturing children or whatever, but right here in the United States.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Oh, Joy.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Davenport, Iowa. You wouldn't think Davenport, Iowa. Like, where the hell is Davenport, Iowa? Who the hell is Davenport Iowa? The Midwest. You're like, wait, what? That's how they got away with it.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

That's how they got away with it. So unsuspecting.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

So innocent. Yep. And it was in the 1930s during the Great Depression era. The Soldiers and Sailors Orphans Home housed hundreds of kids, many of them abandoned. Either their parents died, or they couldn't afford their children because they were in the depression era, or they were taken care of by one parent and they got shipped off to, you know, go to war or wherever. Enter Wendell Johnson. He was a respected speech pathologist at the University of Iowa. He was, some say, obsessed with stuttering research. Interesting. I'm like, what a thing to be obsessed about. But I guess you're a speech pathologist, so Yeah, I guess it makes sense. He believed stuttering wasn't something you were born with. It was taught.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

What? Yeah. So not an issue or infliction based on like some traumatic experience or anything like that. Literally, you're just taught to do it.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

Yeah, you're just taught to stutter. So he was gonna sit out and prove his theory. But instead of using volunteers or adults who could consent, he chose the most vulnerable kids possible. Orphans with no parents, no voice to protect them, nothing.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yeah, no one to stop anything from happening.

Wendell Johnson’s Theory

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Like I've I've heard many things, you know, studies, things like that have happened that have turned out horrible, of course. But like, why do you think like researchers turn to the powerless, orphans, prisoners, poor? They have black communities that they will do certain testing, like things, environmental testing and stuff on, because what are they gonna do about it? Right. What are they gonna do about it? They're living in a poor community or something like that. I I just don't get why they think that it's okay to do that, how like unethical that is. So Johnson had a grad student, Mary Tudor, that worked along beside him. She went into the orphanage in 1939, she handpicked 22 children and split them into four groups. Kids who already stuttered, and they were told that they were fine. They were given positive reinforcement. You stutter, that's okay. You're you you're great. Fluent kids were falsely told they were stutters and they were shamed and corrected constantly.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

So they weren't actually stuttering.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

No.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

But they got told they were.

Group Design & Methods

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Right. Okay. Kids who already stuttered told their speech was bad, negative reinforcement. So you got kids who stutter, that's perfect. Kids who stutter, not no, no. Yeah. You have fluent kids that told that you are stuttering. You are a stutterer and you were shamed and corrected. And then there were fluent kids that were told they were normal and praised. So they did this whole thing. So part of uh Tudor's report that she wrote, one of the one group of perfectly normal fluent kids was lied to over and over. They were told you have speech problems. You must watch every word. Don't even speak unless you can say it right. This was in her her notes. Imagine being nine or ten years old and hearing that every single day from the adults who like are supposed to be there caring for you.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Right. I mean I don't think I'd talk at all at that point.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

I'd end up with that. And that's being mute. What happened? A lot of them would stop talking because every time they tried to, they'd be told they were reprimanded. And told if you don't, if you're not stuttering, you're not talking right.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

I mean, I I think that when you put labels on people.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Did they stutter while they were telling them that? Like do they display a stutter, I wonder? If they were telling them with a stutter that they're talking wrong if they don't stutter.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

That's an interesting question. I don't there was nothing in there saying that they spoke to them in a stutter and were saying that, you know, you have to speak this way, but it's a possibility because how would they know what a stutter was?

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Unless they were exposed to it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Yeah. I don't know. Okay.

unknown 10:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

But like do labels actually describe reality or do they create it? I I believe a lot of labels do have negative uh side effects on people. They really do. But the shame children, um, the staff has come to the conclusion that you have a great deal of trouble with your speech. You must stop yourself immediately. Do anything to keep yourself from stuttering. Don't even speak unless you can do it right. So this was the other group that would stutter. So that were being negatively yeah. Staff at the orphanage were told to constantly stop these kids, mid-sentence, correct them, and embarrass them. And remember, these were these weren't kids with a stutter, they were like fluent. They so I'm like, is the staff stuttering? Like you were saying, did they stutter to them? But I think they were speaking normal. They were just trying to teach them because he thought it was a learned thing. So they were trying to teach them to stutter, to pick it up. But after weekly visits for four or five months of this treatment, um, some of them began to hesitate, cut their words short, even stopped speaking as much. They became more and more like withdrawn from groups. They became afraid to use their own voice. It induced anxiety and shame. I mean, it would, you would think. You're gonna get reprimanded.

Scripts of Shame and Control

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Most introverted introvert on the plan on the planet.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Yeah. And like think of being you do something in class that's embarrassing, and people like the kids laugh at you, like magnify that every day.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

That's that's what was happening to these children who had nobody there to go, stop, this is wrong. Don't do this to this child. So the after you know, months of this, the reports show that none of the fluent kids became full stutterers. I think some of them might have faked a little bit just to be able to adult and be able to talk. But the psychological damage, it was recorded, um, you know, embarrassment, withdrawal, reluctant to speak in public. Some grew up with deep-seated insecurities, of course, because it was trauma as a child. Once this study was done, Tudor submitted her thesis to the University of Iowa, and it was buried for decades. Like it was done and over. Johnson himself never spoke about it publicly. They they did this. Well, they didn't want to get in trouble because they knew what they were doing was wrong as hell. And it panned out to be not true. Yeah. So they were like, we're just gonna kind of bury this and be done with it. Even the researchers that were working with them knew it was monstrous. That's how it got its nickname, the monster study. Not because the children were monsters, because the experiment itself. Like it was horrific. Like day in and day out being berated and told you were wrong. So for decades, these kids lived with the fallout. Many never knew why they had been singled out, why they were chosen for this. And honestly, out of okay, there was a hundred hundreds of kids in this orphanage. How many stutter? There's not a lot of people that do stutter.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah, I was gonna say you don't really run into a lot, but I mean, I guess back then, if it I mean, their life was already traumatic enough. That's how they ended up there. Maybe it was more common there. Maybe so. Because they had been pre-traumatized?

Behavioral Changes and Harm

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Yeah, because I mean, if you think about it, like they had 22 kids that they divided up, like how many were in the stutter groups? I guess they maybe had like two, two here, two there, or something, and more in the non-stutter group.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Probably probably had bigger batches in the non-stutter group.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Yeah, because they were wanting them to stutter. Yeah, yeah. They were wanting to teach them to stutter. So actually in 2001, the study came to light when archives in Iowa opened. Iowa were opened. Iah. Iowa. And I and I I realize this is not the South, but we're just gonna go a little crazy for spooky season. But journalists dug into it, and the survivors of this study that were still alive, they started speaking out about it. Some recall being ridiculed in school even after, unable to shake the label planted on them at age nine and ten. 2007, survivors sued the state of Iowa. They ended up getting a settlement of$925,000, which they split among them. One of the survivors said, I was told I stuttered. And from then on, I believed I did. He was like, I I wouldn't even speak because I thought that I would stutter.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

So it in his- I feel like it didn't matter what it sounded like, apparently. He just automatically thought, Yeah, it sounds fine to me, but it's not coming out that way. Right. It doesn't sound fine to other people.

Burial, Exposure, and Lawsuit

SPEAKER_02 16:29

Yes. So he said it it ruined his confidence and he carried that with him his whole life. The state never admitted full responsibility, which is, of course, you know, but the money was at least some kind of recognition of the harm that was done. They did when a large settlement. And even today, like like I was saying with labels on kids, things are labeled stuff like ADHD, troublemakers, slow readers. Do these you think these labels like shape their identity and self-esteem when they're constantly told, oh, you have something wrong with you. Right. You know, you're a troublemaker.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Instead of you're different, you're right. Unique, you're special, which special used to mean something great until they started calling like special needs education, yeah, special needs. Then it became a derogatory thing instead of something.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Well, I remember positive. I was growing up, there was this boy in class, his name was Jeffrey Bass, and he was the most chaotic kid in school, and everybody would be like, Oh, he's just hyper, he's so hyper, he's hyper. Well, ADHD, it wasn't diagnosed back then, like that, and he was just hyper all the time, so everybody just had to deal with him. But by calling him that over and over, in his head, it was okay to get away with these things because Jeffrey was just hyper, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

So he was fine with it. Like it gave him an excuse because of the way they branded him and described, you know, like made it okay that he was acting this way instead of saying, Hey, you can't run around like a crazy person all day, you know, whatever. Maybe not use the word crazy, but you know what I mean. Exactly. You can't run around all day, you gotta sit down like everyone else.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

But he that was the thing, he couldn't sit still and all that stuff because he had some form of ADHD, but that label was just constantly driven in there because he act that acted that way.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Well, for him, I don't know how much of a hindrance is it as it is for everyone, like for other people in certain circumstances, because he's just using it to his advantage to not get in trouble.

Labels, Identity, and Kids Today

SPEAKER_02 18:57

And then, but then you have like somebody who will say, you know, something negative, like a slow reader. Oh, they're just a slow reader, and they just keep saying it and stuff. Like my son Dylan, he has an intellectual disability mild. He does have trouble with reading, and he would, you know, say, Well, I can't do it because I have a disability. And I would always tell him, I was like, do not use that as an excuse. Yeah, keep trying harder, stop using that as an excuse. I would not let him give up because of something like that.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

It's like you can do it, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:38

It might take you a little longer, but you can do it. But you can do it. And honestly, and we're gonna go get this tested here real, real soon, because you know, but I think he is on the spectrum somewhere, somewhere on that big old spectrum. He's very high functioning, he's very smart, but again, we're not gonna ever let that label define who he is, right? I would never do that.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

And you know what? It's like just knowing because I know him, so obviously been around him.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

He has to understand, much like the senses, deaf people may have a keener sense of smell, of sight, of something else. Just like that, he may have a hard time with reading, but that boy absorbs some info, like on a crazy high level that other people can't. So maybe that's your superpower. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Instead of a deficiency, because all last week I have heard nothing but about Buddha and Buddhism and the culture because he fixated on that 100% and learned everything he could, everything he could, and he uses Chat GPT, he uses Gemini, he goes on YouTube, he does that. He learned everything and he sat there and repeated every single thing back to me and told me all about it in a conversation. Done. So he's smart, but just and that's what I would tell him: just because you cannot physically read certain words, which he's gotten much better at it, that's not that's not the label that is stuck on you for life.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

No, and there are always ways around the things you have a harder time with because I'm gonna tell you right now, there ain't a single person in this world that is actually good at everything. Nope. We all suck at something.

unknown 21:42

Exactly.

Personal Stories and Neurodiversity

SPEAKER_02 21:44

We sure do. And I think the monster study reminds us that words can heal or they can wound. Mm-hmm. But you know, science is powerful, but without ethics, it becomes horror. Yeah, and there are so many studies. As I was looking this one up, I also saw another study about um, it was back in the same era, little Albert, and they literally tortured this poor infant. Well, toddler. He was able to sit up and everything. They would bring animals into the room, bunnies, puppies, kittens, all this cute fluffy stuff into the room. And he was just laughing and he would all reaching out for him and all this stuff. Then they started introducing the animals in the room with a really loud, annoying sound every time the animals come into the room. So he got to where every time they would bring an animal, he would freak the hell out and start screaming and crying because that ear-piercing sound was about to happen. I'm like, what is wrong with people? Why would you do this to this child? So he would resist any anything soft, anything comforting, even his mother's hug. And they didn't try to like desensitize him from that and take it back. They just left it and left his trauma. But that one's a good one to look up. I was I mean, that's the same vivid, literally like doing that to a person.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Like they've done a million conditioning experiments. Yep. I mean, that's how people learned how to train a dog or whatever else. It's like teaching a rat a maze. Yep. Did we really need to do it to a baby?

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Apparently, they thought so. And it's also like generational trauma. You keep repeating that same cycle over and over again. That's horror right there. Because you are stuck in this cycle unless you break yourself out and go in a completely different, different. We we've both done that. Yeah, we we've got out of that cycle. Literally, if I go down the old neighborhood I lived in as a child, it is now a meth neighborhood, and I'm like, oh, and I know you grew up in the ghetto.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Yeah. So the Mexican hood. Oh, I'm sorry, the Mexican hood. It's way different.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

There's like gobs of more people up.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Yeah. I'm sure it is.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

I just I lived in poor land, Arizona. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

So but you know, we were we were surrounded by people that would stop certain things sometimes or knew better to a certain per point, but there are kids that get mistreated, and I see every day when I'm like got an earbud in listening to something on YouTube and working.

Ethics, “Little Albert,” and Conditioning

SPEAKER_01 24:45

I am pretty grateful like for where I did grow up. Like the people there were not good people, but they wouldn't like they were very protective of kids, like otherwise, they were shitty people. Yeah. Like very much. No matter their color of their skin, they were shitty people to grown other grown people, especially anybody who had more than them. Right. Like it was just not it was not a pleasant place. No. But I never felt like I was in any serious danger of physical harm.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

Well, it was the the neighborhood I grew up in. It was it was okay when I was like younger, and then it progressively got worse, and it it was all white people, and it's bad. It's bad, bad now. It's like oof. But to these children who had no voice or no nobody there to, like I said, to stop, like this, this went on. And my finger hit the microphone. But I mean, I think that's a psychological thriller. Yeah. Right there. The things that happen and 11. Vere. Yes, 11. You think of Stranger Things, which is coming out. The last season's coming out. I gotta rewatch it because it's been so long. I know it, but I also want to like rewatch it and catch back up.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

But I always do that when it takes a long time for something to come out. But I'm about to start watching two days.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Two days, Edge.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Monster. I am going to binge it because I've got to watch it all.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

You know, there's a child who I believe will most certainly grow up to be an absolutely well-rounded, wonderful person. And that child belongs to Patty Salzetta. Patty Salzetta, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

I absolutely am 100% sure he will be the greatest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

She gets her self-esteem boost from Hold My Sweet Teeth.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

That's right. She's like, twice a week, she's like bam-bam, dopamine.

unknown 26:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

She's like, thanks, guys. I'm so glad I did your theme music. Right. Because we always gonna call her out and be like, we don't talk about greatest, greatest person alive.

Cycles of Trauma and Upbringing

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yep. Everybody we know are fantastic people. Uh I say everybody we know and like and continue to uh engage with. Because there's some people I know that are not good people, are are really good people. Yeah. Yep. But crazy stuff. So yeah, if you guys know any extra tidbits on this here study, or a study that you've heard of, like the little Albert one that I came across.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Crazy.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Especially to children. Children and animals. That's that's my line right there.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

I'm like, no. Pop on over to any social media platform, send us a message.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Send us a message via your listening platform. Send us an email steeped at holdmysweettea.com.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

And be like, I have an opinion. Click, let me write that out. Do it. Yeah. Absolutely. And as always, hold my sweet tea is a drunken bee production. And you guys remember at the end. You guys remember to stay safe out there. And just because we're dipping doesn't mean you can't keep sipping.