Three of the pupils who took part in the filming, together with River City star Lorraine McIntosh and BSA's Education Officer Cherry Hughes.

Some of the children had a go behind the camera.

Children on stage read a poem in Scots.

BSA is currently developing CD-Roms which demonstrate best practice in the management of stammering in the classroom, for distribution to all Scottish schools.

The filming of classroom scenes and of individual speaking to camera by children who stammer, parents and therapists was completed during the week of October 18th at two schools in Scotland. During that week, there were 72 volunteers taking part: this included 7 children aged between 6 and 15 who do stammer, 46 children within the same age range who do not, four therapists, 1 researcher, 5 teachers, and 1 student teacher, 1 careers officer, 2 janitors, 5 parents of children who stammer, and Lorraine McIntosh who stars in River City. Each day there were never less than 30 people attending and filming took place from 10am to at least 4pm, sometimes later than that.

The whole week was characterised by a total commitment to the concept of educating teachers about stammering; parents ferried their children sometimes from considerable distances, everyone arrived on time and genuinely seemed to enjoy the whole proceedings. The BSA is so grateful to all of them, particularly the headteachers of the two schools for their support and the Scottish Executive whose funding provision made the whole project possible.

The CDs will be distributed early 2006 to all primary and secondary schools, and all speech and language therapy departments in Primary Care Trusts throughout Scotland after their formal launch at an event in Edinburgh.

November 2004

April 2006 update on CDs

See also:
BSA Education Officer