SIKESTON — Speech-language
pathologist Camille Lancaster is working to ensure conversation isn’t
becoming a lost art.
“I’ve been working with children over the past years and have found
a lot of kids aren’t talked to,” said Lancaster of Sikeston. “They
sit in front of TV or a video game or are sent outside to play, and a lot
of parents don’t take time to talk with their kids.”
So the 34-year-old mother of five — she has 9-, 7- and 3-year-old
daughters and 7-month-old twin sons — created a board game designed to
develop conversation skills for people of virtually all ages.
“If they’re (children) not used to adult conversation, they may
give you a one- word answer or an answer not related to what you asked
them,” said Lancaster, who currently works at Richland schools in Essex.
The board game called ConverStation, which Lancaster originally created
and used with some of her students, hit the market in June. Since then
it’s nabbed a 2005 Preferred Choice Award from Creative Child Magazine
as a Toy of the Year Finalist. The game includes 240 question cards
divided into four question categories: “Wh- Questions”; “If I...”;
“Tell about...”; and “How do you....”
The four-question types cover a multitude of topics — anywhere from
holidays to personal experiences to how someone feels about a certain
situation, Lancaster said.
“As you land on a certain colored square (on the board), you choose a
card of that color, and the cards are divided into the four categories,”
Lancaster said. Players move around the board answering the main questions
and follow-up questions.
“The whole point of the game is getting the people you’re playing
with to have a conversation with you,” Lancaster said.
Game cards are split into three levels of players: kids, adults and
both. “You do have adults who have had brain injuries due to car
accidents or illnesses or older adults who have had strokes and are
relearning their skills,” Lancaster said.
All of the text (in the game) is Lancaster’s, and she came up with
the game’s name. It was also her idea to create a “train track”
around the board, which also features a collage of people in the shape of
a train in the center of the board.
“I wanted to use real pictures versus cartoon-like pictures so it
would appeal to not only children and families, but maybe people who’ve
had a stroke and learning how to could talk again,” Lancaster said.
A companion workbook, ConverStation Graphic Expression Activity
Workbook, can be purchased and used separately from the board game. The
purpose of the workbook is for a person to learn when and how to express
themselves in writing versus conversation.
And the game is not just for speech-language pathologists to use.
Educators and families who want to learn how to talk to their kids can
also benefit from the game, Lancaster said.
“This game, hopefully, will help families learn how to converse with
each other,” Lancaster said. “It’s a pretty basic concept, lost in
this day and age, people don’t know how to talk to each other.
Lancaster admitted she was rejected by eight different publishing
companies until a representative from Say It Right called her at home with
interest in her game concept.
Say It Right, a small press educational publisher based in Tybee
Island, Ga., publishes and distributes materials related to
speech-language pathology, English as a second language and special
education.
Juggling her family, work and writing is very difficult, Lancaster
said. At one point Lancaster said she was so overwhelmed with meeting the
deadline, she found herself e-mailing her publisher saying she doesn’t
have time. After reassurance from her publisher, Lancaster kept going, she
said.
“It took a lot of late nights, and I took my laptop on vacation.
Whenever everybody was napping, and my husband was home, I’d steal an
hour to sit down and write,” Lancaster said, adding the entire process
from start to finish took two years.
Lancaster is now working on other projects in the same category of
materials, she said. Next month she is scheduled to speak at a conventions
in her field at the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tenn., and at
Tan-Tar-A Resort in Osage Beach in March.
“I can’t begin to express how proud I am of my wife,” Jay
Lancaster said. “She really is an amazing woman and incredibly creative.
With our three daughters and infant twin sons, I really don’t understand
how she is able or even interested in her writing, but she is very
determined to have a creative outlet.” Living in a house full of seven
people, there’s really not much time to stop and wonder if there’s
enough time to get everything done.
“Our motto is just get up every day and don’t think about it,”
Lancaster said. “Just get up and do it.”
For more information about ConverStation, visit www.sayitright.org.
