Question: Below is a response template in my templates.yaml file:

```
entity_paused: <speak>I paused {{ entity }} <say-as interpret-as="digits">{{ id }}</say-as></speak>.

```

According to the flask-ask [documents](http://flask-ask.readthedocs.io/en/latest/responses.html#automatic-handling-of-plaintext-and-ssml), they automatically detect SSML based on the root element 'speak'. Yet when I test my app, Alexa readys the template varbatim and I can see the response sent back to the Alexa service is Plaintext type.
I believe the SSML is correct according to the Amazon [documentation](https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/docs/speech-synthesis-markup-language-ssml-reference#say-as)

I call the template via:

```
return statement(render_template('paused_entity', entity='SomeEntity', id=123456))

```

Apologies in advance if this is something basic as I've only been coding for 7 months. Thanks!

Answer: 
For me, the problem was in *.../flask\_ask/models.py* file.
Scroll down to *def \_output\_speech(speech):* function and replace:

```
xmldoc = ElementTree.fromstring(speech)
    if xmldoc.tag == 'speak':

```

with:

```
if '<speak' in speech:

```

Easy and works...
I had problems with this too and found that I needed to restart the FlaskAsk instance before it would detect changes with my templates.yaml file.