This Sunday, four of us were there in Samagra: Anant, Parmanand, Anil and self (Board exams are ahead so other students could not come). We practiced bouncing and increased the speed as we went. Anant had seen Sholay, the famous movie, recently. So we practiced story telling and gradually introduced various communication ‘stressors’; it went something like this:
B-b-b-biru and G-g-g-abbar w-w-w-w-ere f-f-f-f-friends.
No- no, Th-th-th-they w-w-w-w-ere e-e-e-e-enemies.
Yes, s-s-s-s-s-sorry, J-j-j-j-jai and B-b-b-b-b-biru were f-f-f-f-friends.
Th-th-th-thakur calls them to c-c-c-c-catch G-g-g-g-gabbar
No, No f-f-f-first Gabbar c-c-c-cuts thakur’s ha-ha-ha-hands.
O ye-ye-yes. First Gabbar e-e-e-escapes from j-j-j-jail.
And B-b-b-biru c-c-c-catches hi-hi-hi-him
No-no. It w-w-w-was th-th-th-thakur who caught h-h-h=him.
Ok. so Gabbar is very a-a-a-a-angry. H-h-h-he cuts Jai’s hands.
No,no. He c-c-c-cuts Thakur’s hands.
So on and so forth..
The idea here was to bounce rapidly (so that we dont stop ourselves from stammering overtly and develop a better control over our speech mechanism) and to cope with interruptions from others. PWS cope poorly with interruptions. Either they give up talking or get very irritated in such situations. Reason is- 99% of their speech problem is in the beginning. Once they start, they want to finish what they have got to say. When some one interrupts, asks a question or ‘butts in’- thay have to stop and start all over again. The above game was to practice this- accepting the interruption calmly and then starting all over again- with a smile. Yes, we had a lot of fun. We carried the story even beyond the normal end..
