The Place of Tales in Cchildren’s Speech and Language Therapy

Abstract

This article describes in brief the specifics of use of tales in speech and language therapy as opposed to that in the psychotherapy direction of narrative therapy. The analysis is supported by a study of the practice of Bulgarian speech and language therapists which came to several conclusions: a large number of the speech and language therapists in the country employ tales to support their speech and language therapy goals; tales are mainly used to improve semantics and motivate speaking; most often, popular tales are used, and some of the professionals adapt their texts to the goals and specifics of children; an extremely small proportion of the speech and language therapists create their own tales for the goals pursued; a small proportion of the practitioners educate themselves to use tales through appropriate literature, and an even smaller proportion undergo targeted training; most of the professionals feel that even if it is good to be trained, this is not required when it comes to the use of tales.