To provide special instruction for students who report fear and avoidance of communication, a reticence program was instituted at Pennsylvania State University. Since the school has a general speech requirement that nearly all students have to meet in order to graduate, students are given an opportunity to enroll in this special section if they feel they may have any of the communication problems listed on a handout presented to them on the first day of speech class. A screening interview is then arranged whereby probing questions are asked to try to get a feel for the breadth and the depth of the student's communication problems. Once accepted into the special program, students are offered opportunities to practice communicating through the in-class goals (speeches, group oral reports, and so forth), the out-of-class goals (any sort of communication goal of the students' choice to be done out of class), and the other assignments that provide them with practice situations (the group project, simulated job interviews, etc.). Students are taught to change their views of themselves as communicators and of the act of communication through material on communication principles, goal analysis papers, goal reports, audience and situation analysis instruction for all types of situations, and discussion of public speaking as extended conversation. (HOD)