Working with
The BSA has received reports that the following approaches in these areas have helped individual students who stammer:
In a one to one situation it should be possible to permit a student to give an answer in a multiple choice test by pointing to the correct answer. If this facility is offered to the whole class then singling out is avoided.
If the oral answer required is quite complex, it is helpful to allow students to write down their answers. One medical school did allow a student who stammers to write answers to clinical questions that were usually administered and answered orally.
Planning and preparing for oral work, and then rehearsing the task frequently has built confidence.
Simulating in their mind the situation and the feelings caused by it while rehearsing it repeatedly, until the feelings of anxiety diminish, has also helped.
Listening to a favourite band before doing an oral task for English was relaxing.
'Reframing' the actual task so that they pretended that they were talking in a different situation, as if they were performing has helped some pupils.
The young people who stammer report to the BSA that what helps the most is a good relationship with the teachers, and a feeling that they can take as much time as they need. Most of them, apart from that, want to be treated in the same way as the other pupils. However, they feel more relaxed if alternative strategies are available, should they need them.
Kent talks about what has helped him in his oral work