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From: Ellen-Marie Silverman
Date: 22 Oct 2004
Time: 16:43:59 -0500
Remote Name: 64.12.116.136
Dear Sara, Bibliotherapy is therapy as I understand it, so let's dispense with the notion of pre-therapy for purposes of answering your questions. The purposes of bibliotherapy with children are several as mentioned in the paper, all of which are deeply therapeutic. The requirements for the adult providing the therapy are basically two-fold: Understanding children, especially their cognitive and emotional status and Being able to draw out individual responses from them in response to elements of a storied that is shared, so the therapist needs to be a skilled interviewer of the child, creating a climate of trust and comfort for the child to honestly express thoughts and feelings about their own stuttering, or even that of the book character, which may be the most comfortable for many to even begin to consider and discuss their own concerns and feelings. Jason's Secret can easily be integrated into therapy with children from 6 to 10 years of age, or so. It was deliberately written to provide a stimulus for discussions about resistance to therapy, the nature of therapy, the child's role in therapy, termination of therapy, dealing with bullies, family dynamics, feelings of being an isolate, facing problems rather than hiding them, coping with anger about being different and left out, etc. You might like to look it over. Unfortunately, not many books are available for use in stuttering therapy with children where the main character, or even an ancillary one, struggles to cope with their own stuttering problem. But there are some "out there." The method can be used quite well with parents and other caregivers, too, to help them learn more about the various dimensions of a stuttering problem and what they can do to help the child they are concerned about. Thank you for your questions. I hope you will continue your interest in this most helpful therapy method. Ellen-Marie Silverman