Selective Mutism Research Paper

Firstly, I always talk to the parents to find out as much as I can about the child, their needs, interests, how much they can say or gestures they make for juice, hunger or toileting. Who they are closest to.

According to Descartes, they would automatically fail the language-test. One example is the speech disorder known as "muteness". People that suffer from mutism are often capable of hearing but are unable to speak due to have deficiencies in certain parts of the body such as the throat, vocal cords, or lungs. Another example would be the more severe form of autism that is known as nonverbal autism, which causes them to have a lot of difficulties communicate. Even though some people may suffer from these disabilities, they are still capable of rational thought and are able to communicate with others, just in a differ manner - usually through sign language. There is also a speech disorder called echolalia, where someone is capable of using speech to repeat what is being said to them but are unable to communicate their own thoughts. But according to Descartes and his language-test, if a person is unable to use verbal language then this must mean that they are also incapable of thinking and do not possess a mind. People that suffer from these disorders or disabilities are still able to think and do possess a mind, they are just unable to communicate verbally and instead, will have to express their thoughts differently, usually through American Sign Language or some form of

This disorder is important to me for two reasons: 1) my adopted granddaughter has Selective Mutism, and 2) there is very little awareness about the disorder and especially in education. Since this disorder is not well known and usually diagnosed incorrectly as shyness rather than an anxiety disorder by primary care physicians, this hampers this population from getting immediate treatment. Moreover, what is strange, at home, the child does not manifest this anxiety disorder and speaks in a normal fashion (Harwood, & Bork, 2011). To adequately support the Selective Mutism child, there is a need to provide classroom support, along with, teacher, parents, and school psychologist awareness. An intensive training program for all teaching staff and educational psychologist is needed to accomplish this. (Shipon-Blum,

My proposed area of study for my dissertation is to look at and explore the phenomenon of Selective Mutism as it appears in children. I will specifically be examining the symptoms of this behavior utilizing a variety of cognitive and behavioral theories. Contemporary forms of treatment for SM will also be researched in my dissertation. Through the totality of my research I will be able to draw conclusions and report my findings to the psychological community. These findings will provide insight on how to detect, diagnose, and treat this rare, but serious condition.

Selective mutism (SM) is a rare anxiety disorder that is noticeable in a child just entering kindergarten. The child refuses to speak in specific situations where the child is expected to communicate, such as school and other social situations. Furthermore, at home, the child’s speech is normal (Harwood, & Bork, 2011). The DSM-5(APA, 2013) list the following when diagnosing SM. The absence of speech must be present at least one month after entering kindergarten, excluding the first month when starting school for the first

This condition is diagnosed with a medical history and physical exam. You may also have tests, including:

To ensure that criterion E has been satisfied an understanding the differential diagnoses is imperative. Differential diagnosis can be understood as, “the distinguishing of a disease or condition from others presenting with similar signs or symptoms” (“Differential Diagnosis”). Selective Mutism has differential diagnoses under three domains, communication disorders; neurodevelopment disorders (including schizophrenia and similar disorders) and social anxiety disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013a). Understanding the differences in these diagnoses versus selective mutism benefits the client and ensures that they receive the correct treatment and care. Communication disorders are commonly misunderstood as both at face value deal with communication. However, it is important to recognize that communication disorders, such as social pragmatic disorders, language disorder, speech and sound disorders and childhood onset fluency disorder are characterized by an in ability to communicate, regardless of setting. This differs from selective mutism due to the disorder not presenting itself in all settings. Arguably if there were systemic difficulties with communication, such as vocabulary, syntax or stuttering were present these disabilities would be noticed prior to entering grade school and would be present in situations where selective mutism children are present speaking.

Your child's health care provider may suspect the condition based on your child's medical history and symptoms found during a routine exam. Your child's health care provider will take your child's medical history and perform a physical exam. During the exam:

Some children that have problems talking, may have one or multiple of these symptoms/signs, which they have trouble with:

6). Approval was obtained from the research ethics boards of the academic centers of Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. The sample was recruited through specialized anxiety disorders clinics in three urban areas. Forty-four children with 32 SM girls and 12 SM boys, and 28 children with Axis I anxiety disorders. Also, included in the group 13 girls and 15 boys with Anxiety disorders, along with 17 with generalized anxiety disorder, 7 with social phobia, 4 with separation anxiety disorder, and 14 females and, 5 males diagnosed as normal made up the participants. To validate their data, the researchers used some test such as The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III (PPVT-III; Dunn and Dunn, 1997) is an extensively norm-based measure that estimates children's receptive vocabulary skills. The ADIS (Silverman and Albano, 1996) is a semistructured diagnostic interview focusing on childhood anxiety disorders in addition to The Selective Mutism Questionnaire (SMQ; Bergman et al., 2001) was also included. This is a specific parent- and teacher-report measure of mutism severity. Strengths of the study were it was the only study so far to examine the three factors of oral language, working memory and social, clinical impairment and intervention within the same sample. The weaknesses were The availability of questionnaires in English only eliminated a large segment of the SM population from this study. Also,

As the makeup of students in classrooms change and general education teachers are educating a range of students with diverse needs, new learning barriers are becoming prominent in American classrooms. One of these learning disabilities that is emerging is a language disorder called selective mutism. Selective mutism is defined as a language disorder in which individuals who exhibit normal language skills with no delays in daily home situations are unwilling or unable to speak when confronted with novel situations or people. This disorder, when presented in classrooms, can affect both the social and the academic progress of the student. When considering students who exhibit symptoms of selective mutism,

This condition is diagnosed with a medical history and physical exam. Your child’s health care provider may refer you to an eye disease specialist (ophthalmologist) for a diagnosis. This condition is diagnosed with an eye exam. This includes:

Consequently, this condition is shown through the child’s reluctance to speak in certain settings due to phobias of speaking and fear of people. It is usually not noticed

Selective mutism is a mental disorder that typically occurs in children or adolescents. This disorder is categorized by children being silent in some settings, mainly social situations, but are able to talk and are freely able to do so in some situations. Selective mutism is a diagnosis and is credited, but there has not been many studies on it. The term “electiver mutismus” was first used in 1877, and was used from then on by some people to discuss people who were extremely shy. In 1963, 4 cases out of 2000 children, were described as having elective mutism. The 4 children were of normal intelligence, had no psychosocial trauma, and seemed as if they would have a positive outcome in the next ten years. There are not many papers published on

There are many treatments for Selective Mutism, such as psychodynamic, family systems, and pharmacological approaches, however the most commonly used techniques are behavioral interventions (stimulus fading, contingency management, shaping, learning theory approaches, escape-avoidance, and self-modeling techniques) (Mitchell & Kratochwill, 2013). It is very important that children who begin to display signs of Selective Mutism get treated right away to avoid further impairment in their academic success and social interactions.