During the initial phase of elementary school-age stuttering therapy (those children persisting in stuttering past the developmental stuttering phase, with or without therapy), education about speech creates a foundation for learning specific strategies to make communication easier. One type of strategy used to increase understanding of speech and the various ways people can make speech is entitled:

Directions:

The following directions are presented to the child or group of children:

1. There are lots of ways that people can make speech. We are going to think of all of the ways that we might be able to say a word. Let's write them down and then play a game with them. Sometimes when people play around with their speech they feel silly, embarrassed, or awkward. It's O.K. to play around with your speech and to feel certain ways when doing it.
2. Draw a large soup bowl on a piece of construction paper.
3. Brainstorm different ways of saying words and write them on note cards or pre-cut shapes. Some examples might be:
   • slowly
   • quickly
   • super loud
   • tiny bumpy
   • high pitch
   • sing-song
   • tired
   • grumpy
   • happy
   • old lady
   • strict teacher
   • stuttered
   • smooth
   • stretched
   • to the max
   • gigantic stuck
   • etc.
4. Put all of the cards into the Speech Soup bowl face down.
5. Take turns choosing a card and practice saying an identical word with that type of speech.
6. Put all cards attempted face up.
7. At the end of the game, discuss the concept that talking is neither "good" nor "bad", there are many ways to talk about talking, and it is O.K. to work on making talking easier.

You can post Questions/comments about the above paper to the author before October 22, 2008.