This tape aims to teach children of different ages how to recognise and deal with excessive tension. The first side has two sets of relaxation activities and is intended for children between the ages of 4 and 6 years. The second side is for older children (7 to 11 years) and involves relaxation exercises that can be done while sitting or lying down.
The first activity asks children to contrast bad cross feelings with happy relaxed feelings by stamping and punching and then going floppy like a puppet. Then different muscle groups are tensed and relaxed. The second group of activities involves the child in moving stiffly and then relaxing. Next they move around comfortably and then freeze at command into stiff, spiky postures. Full relaxation is followed by and introduction into visualisation (a special happy picture to watch in your head). This side of the tape introduces the idea of 'quietening', a comfortable stage somewhere between the unpleasant tension and the floppy relaxation.
The second side is more advanced and teaches calming, deeper relaxation and visualisation as ways of dealing with tension in different situations.
Jane Madders gives very clear instructions on the tape and she sounds relaxed and dependable. Relaxation is discussed as something that the child can do by themselves to deal with those difficult feelings that interfere with their successful performance in a whole range of situations. There is no hint of any stigma being attached to a child who needs to relax.
The debate surrounding the value of relaxation exercises for people who stammer will no doubt continue for many more years. Children who are very tense or who have difficulty in getting to sleep or in quientening down after excitement may well benefit in a general way from this tape. This may, in the longer term, benefit their speaking. When a child's anxiety is caused primarily by their inability to anticipate their own and other's behaviour then it is unlikely that relaxation exercises alone will have a dramatic effect upon their speech. My own clinical experience leads me to believe that an ability to relax is beneficial in a general way but that in itself is not enough to significantly help with stammering. This tape makes a good job of teaching basic relaxation and I think well worth trying with any child who seems too tense.
Reviewed by Rosemarie Hayhow in the Summer 1991 issue of 'Speaking Out'.
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