About this activity
Eight telephone tasks with a fluency tool attached: call a store and ask what time they close, using an easy onset on the first word; say your own name on the phone with a gentle start; leave a voicemail with a planned pause between your name and your number; order takeout by phone instead of by app; make a call and pseudo-stutter once on purpose; rate the call — did you use a tool, avoid a word, or both.
How to use it in a session
Work up the list rather than picking. Asking a shop's closing time is low stakes and anonymous; saying your own name is much harder, because names are the classic feared word and there is no synonym. The pseudo-stutter card is the most therapeutic item on the board — stuttering on purpose in a real call removes the fear of it happening by accident. Twenty minutes and one real call is a session.
What to listen for
Listen to the self-rating. Did you use a tool, avoid a word, or both is the question that surfaces what actually happened, and students routinely report a successful call that involved substituting three words. Watch which calls get postponed week after week — that avoidance is the finding, not the failure.
Carrying it home
Every household makes calls. Handing over one a week — the takeaway order, the appointment confirmation — is a real rung on the ladder and it happens anyway.
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Ninth through twelfth grade, where phone avoidance is well established and consequential.
- Do I need an account?
- No, all eight tasks are free to use.
- Why stutter on purpose?
- Because it removes the fear of it happening. A student who has stuttered deliberately on a real call, and found that the call still worked, has learned something no amount of technique practice teaches.