selective mutism
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Anonymous
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My dd was just diagnosed with selective mutism, although I'm not at all sure the diagnosis fits. I'd love to hear from others with children with this diagnosis -- specifically, how much did your child talk outside the home? What did you do for treatment? The dev. ped. is recommending speech therapy and/or working with a psychologist, with perhaps anti-anxiety meds added later.
Thanks. |
Anonymous
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No formal DX here for DS, but the psychiatrist he sees believes this is what he likely has. DS, 8, takes a very low dose of liquid Prozac at this point and it has helped a great deal. The issue of not speaking was most significant in a school setting but even in social settings, DS had a difficult time sometimes speaking with adults and, when he was younger, he also did not talk much with kids.
In the school setting, we found a lot of improvement over the course of any school year as he got more comfortable. This year, it does not seem to be an issue although he is not - and likely will never be -- the type of kid who is raising his hand yelling "I know! I know!" His natural personality is pretty quiet. We continue to consider group therapy for anxiety. When he was younger, he did some play therapy but that did not help him deal with the anxiousness - but demonstrated that school was a place he felt anxious. Good luck! |
Anonymous
| I suspect that my (almost 5 year old) daughter will be dx with it shortly- she talks all the time at home and with friends that she has known for a long time (like since they were babies). At school she will never voluntarily speak to an adult. If her teacher asks her a direct question, she might whisper an answer, more than likely, she will lean over and whisper to her friend and have her friend answer for her. She has yet to say one word to any adult in her aftercare program, and went the entire summer at camp w/o saying a single word to a counselor. She will not speak to any adults outside of our family, and it took 2 years befor she would speak to my sister. It is a huge struggle for her. We have just started therapy for her and I don't know what they will recommend. |
Anonymous
| this is 13:09 again, I should add that shealso has a very hard time with kids as well, she really only talks to 2 children in her class, and forget about a situation like a birthday party, she won't leave my side. |
Anonymous
| OP, how old is your DD? Is she completely non-verbal? |
Anonymous
I was the one who posted about our DS and what you describe definitely applied to him at that age. Even now, there are situations where he will turn to us and say "You say it." The psychiatrist encouraged us to try to "expose" him to situations where he has to speak and not speak for him, and we've done some of that. He definitely speaks softly in such circumstances though and it can be hard for others to hear him. But at least he does speak. He still often does not speak much, if at all, with relatives and close friends in some cases. However, we've also found that if we are not around, he will talk more. A psychologist he saw until last year said that he would not be like this at 16, or as an adult, and we've seen improvement in the last year or so. As I previously posted, the lack of talking once extended to most other kids, although that is not nearly as much of an issue anymore - his teachers have reported for the past two years that he's appropriately social with other kids. All that said, I don't think he would've improved as much without Prozac - although these medications are tricky. DS can only tolerate a very low dose. He tried Zoloft at one point, at a higher dose in pill form, and we had to take him off of it because he became "disinhibited." Selective mutism/social anxiety/however you label it is still an issue but it does seem to improve. Good luck to all! |
Anonymous
DD is 5 and, no, she's not non-verbal, which is why I'm not sure the diagnosis fits. She won't talk to her peers outside of her closest friend and she won't say hello or goodbye to her teachers, but she will participate in circle time. At home she's very talkative. |
Anonymous
That's the "selective" part, OP. She's mute at times, but at other times talks just fine. I think "selective mutism" is very much an anxiety disorder. When tehse kids are very anxious, they just can't talk! Doesn't mean they won't talk; it's not on purpose. They can't. because they are too anxious. Any treatment IMO needs to be to reduce anxiety in those situations. (Not force kids to speak for themselves.) |
Anonymous
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to 13:34, this is 13:09- thank you for your follow up post- as I'm sure you can imagine, I am a total wreck about this and trying very hard to figure out how to help her, thanks for the supportive response.
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Anonymous
| OP, will she talk to relatives or extended family? |
Anonymous
She talks to her grandparents who live a couple blocks away and whom she sees all the time. After an initial warm-up period, she talks to her other grandparents. With aunts and uncles, she isn't silent, but is very, very quiet and will never initiate conversation. It kills me to think that she is this anxious and has been at least for the past three years, when she started school. Her first year in nursery school was a very stressful year in our family's life and I feel so bad that I didn't shield her from it and that maybe that created a bad/anxious association with school. |
Anonymous
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I have a close friend whose 9 yo DS has selective mutism. My DS also has anxiety and we both participated in a research study at NIH. OP's DC is too young for that study http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT00018057 but there are other studies involving anxiety that may be of interest http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT00024635 We've participated in a number of NIH studies and each time, our experience has been very, very positive. Our kids LOVE the researchers and we've learned so very much from them. They've been amazing resources.
Both of our kids take generic Prozac. It's made an incredible difference in their lives. We're also using CBT but, frankly, their brains are so geared to react with anxiety that the medication is really the only thing that allows them a more normal life. My friends's DS has known me for 3 years, he goes to school with my DS and I picked up up for a year for therapy. He didn't speak to me directly until after he was at a therapeutic dose of medication. I understand from a PP that a psychologist said her child would outgrow the SM, but I can tell you that my friend's DH has considerable social anxiety. While he will greet me, he's very uncomfortable have conversation for any length of time with me - again, I've known him for three years on more than just a passing basis. |
Anonymous
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I had a preschoole student like this and liked the attention her SN brother got and his "talkies" augment dev., but I was doing ABA privately on the side and did some of the same techniques with the kid at school. She did start talking and helped her use her words w/ friends. THe other students finally learned she could talk which opened her up a lil to more parallel play. Unfortunately the lady the mom brought in had some popsicle stick thing for every word spoken wasnt as successful. The next year she regressed again because i wasnt working w/ her anymore, but I saw her mom a few years later n she is a blabber mouth.
my dd best friend also had this and became a blabber mouth in 2/3rd grade |
Anonymous
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My now 6 year-old DD was officially diagnosed at age 4, although we suspected it long before that. We did a lot of work with her at home, inviting lots of people over, one at a time, to provide one on one interaction in a safe environment, and she is now at a point where she will speak to most everyone who comes to our house. Outside it's a completely different story though, especially at school. She did well in her preschool, where she started speaking to her teacher after almost 1 1/2 years, but this school year she is in 1st grade in a new school and she has not spoken to any of her teachers yet. We are currently working with her and her classroom teacher and she is slowly making progress, but the steps are very small.
It is definitely an anxiety disorder, and not one that they outgrow on their own (not saying it never happens but i think those cases are rare). I think with help they can learn to manage the anxiety, but it will never completely go away. There are a lot of resources out there now that weren't even there three years ago, so you can read up and get connected to others who have this issue. A book that I found very helpful was this: http://www.amazon.com/Helping-Your-Child-Selective-Mutism/dp/157224416X Also, there is now a new nonprofit devoting their efforts to spreading awareness and bringing parents together; they also have a fairly active facebook page: http://www.selectivemutismnetwork.org/ |
Anonymous
PP - could you describe why you suspected this in your DD prior to her diagnosis? We have a 2 1/2 DC who may be showing some signs and we plan on having a discussion with ped. soon to determine whether further evaluation is appropriate. |