Word: mutism
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...speak up in class? What may at first glance look like shyness or obstinacy is actually something far more complex--and much more interesting. Abby, like hundreds of thousands of kids across the U.S., is suffering from a little understood but increasingly recognized childhood disorder called selective mutism...
...selective mutism, or SM for short, is the seemingly incongruous behavior Abby exhibits: voluble in private, silent in public. According to the official psychiatric diagnostic manual DSM-IV, a child who has developed normally at home but has not talked at school or in other social situations for at least a month is a strong candidate for a diagnosis of SM. Experts once believed that fewer than 1 in 1,000 kids developed the disorder, but an influential study three years ago in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry put the prevalence at closer...
...root of the problem in most cases is an extreme form of social anxiety or phobia. "It is a fear that can literally make it impossible to speak," says Dr. Elisa Shipon- Blum, a Philadelphia-based clinician who specializes in treating selective mutism. As with most social anxieties, SM is more common in girls and is believed to have a strong genetic component. About 70% of kids with SM have an immediate family member who also struggles with social anxiety...
Compared with childhood disorders in which children are disruptive and disorderly-- such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)--selective mutism gets less attention and considerably fewer research dollars. "These children are ignored because, let's face it, they aren't causing anyone trouble. They are literally left alone and forgotten about," says psychologist Lindsey Bergman, associate director of the UCLA child and adolescent OCD [obsessive-compulsive disorder] and anxiety disorders program...
...students, Anna, had selective mutism and would only talk to people in the family or people she trusted, Nguyen says. Her regular school teacher had told Nguyen that Anna was excessively shy and only spoke in one-word answers, but then “one day at BRYE, Anna said, ‘Wait for me, okay?’ and it was a really big deal,” Nguyen recounts. She says it might have been the influence of being around younger people and more liberal teachers...