Vicki and I've been asked to provide a few suggestions
for selective mutism strategies for parents.
Vicki is a speech language pathologist, this comes up for you.
Can you take a moment and just explain what selective mutism is?
So selective mutism is when a child can speak. They have the ability to speak
in some circumstances but for whatever reason they are not speaking in other
circumstances or with certain people. It can be very vocal, right, like the child
might speak very freely and openly at home and with family.
But not at all at school. And I had one student that even he would be talking with his mother
on a walk, and even as they approached the school to walk past the school,
he would stop talking and then speak again past the school. So it can be very - it's a
very selective thing. Now, that being said, we don't want to oversimplify it though.
Right. Meaning it's not just that this child is choosing not to speak or that
they are being defiant or oppositional about it. My experience with kids who
have selective mutism is that they are not being defiant.
It's not an oppositional thing - in fact, as a psychologist now I get to kick in with
my experience, okay. It really is more of an anxiety-based disorder. It's a problem
that originates from psychology more than it does from language development.
Would you agree with that? I would, yes. I definitely would.
So like you said let's not oversimplify it and say that it's just choice. There is an
element of choice. Okay, we're going to acknowledge that and that affects how we
handle it and how we treat it. But it's not just that - there are many factors
involved including psychological and social and emotional factors that contribute.
And it's not as easy as just saying "well just talk". Right. So Vicki,
let's get into some do's and don'ts. Now these are particularly for you as
parents but you might be a professional or a teacher
you're an SLP working with kids that these can be helpful for as well.
So where can we start, Vicki? Well one of the first things you want to do is allow for
some warmup time. Give the child a little bit of time to just warm up to the idea
of speaking in their situation, their setting. Or even the environment that they're in.
You'll notice this with typical children, as well when they
come into a new environment at first, it's kind of like
they're unsure, uncertain. There's a higher level of vigilance. Well this is
exaggerated with kids who have selective mutism. And because of the anxiety issues
they're going to need a little more warm-up time even than typical children would.
Definitely. So allow for that. Vicki let's cover some of the don'ts too. Okay.
Because that can be helpful. Don't force or insist on speech. You know
it's such an interesting thing because we're talking about strategies for
parents who are dealing with children with selective mutism. Really what we're
kind of talking about is strategies and accommodations you're gonna make to help
them learn to be comfortable to communicate in their environment.
Now communication includes a whole lot more than speech. And in my experience, kids
who have selective mutism continue to communicate. Definitely. But they find
ways around it - so sometimes they'll use an intermediary for example. I've seen
some that might feel comfortable whispering to one child, one good friend,
or whispering to the teacher. So there are ways. But it is not helpful to
insist that they speak. Right. And you can't force them, so get that out of your
mind anyway. How would you do that? How about another do. Okay. Monitor your
child's anxiety and you can usually pick that up through body language. Right.
As you just get to know the child better. So this is for parents but also maybe
some classroom teachers as well as you get to know them you're going to be able
to tell when their anxiety is rising. So you're going to want to monitor that.
You can look for some typical cues. For example, the eyes turning down or
they almost become smaller, right, they kind of hunker down the shoulders go
down this is a protective kind of a stance that a child will take that
indicates to you that the anxiety has gone up a bit. And that's a good time to
notice that probably it's going to be less likely that we'll have a successful
communication at least verbally in that moment. So monitor the anxiety and watch
that body language. That kind of brings me to one of the don'ts that I see all
the time is if they do speak, don't make a huge deal out of it. One of the things that they
really don't want is all the attention turned on them or on their speaking.
So I've seen it before whereas child does finally say something and the whole
class was like did you see - you talked - and that's going to reduce the chances
of them talking again. Yes. No parties, no celebrations. And it's tempting to do
that because you've been looking for this, and you'll have a little party
inside of your own heart and mind. But keep it toned down. Honestly this is
something that kids with selective mutism fear - is having all that attention
drawn to them and their speaking. That's one of the reasons they're not speaking
in the first place. Now that doesn't mean you can't process it later with them.
Right. About, "hey did you see when you did, when you spoke and said this, here's
what happened," you know, "here's the consequence you got" what you were asking
for. Or you know so-and-so, said yes, I'd like to have you come over to my party
and you got to go to the party because you told them yes or you invited them -
and along those lines we want to help them internalize the rewards for having
communicated appropriately. And so less focused on my feelings: "I was so proud of
you," "you did such a great job." Yet tone that down and get back to where they're
coming from. "How did that feel to you when you actually have the courage to do
that - when you spoke up?" And draw out from them their feelings, that's going to be
much more reinforcing. I've got another do. Okay.
Stay patient. Because it's going to take law remember we were taught
about having some warm-up time. There's also a time period - I've watched this
with so many of the selective mutism kids I've worked with - where they
want to say it. They're about to say it. But it takes some time. Some hesitation.
And it's going to take a little longer than you are comfortable with. So notice
that, and it's not as long as you fear, but it's longer than you want. Allow for
the hesitation. Be patient and allow for that pause in that hesitation because a
lot of times they'll work through it and have a little success. Now when they do,
don't celebrate it. How do you, bet, yeah don't go. But you know a trick that I use
as a speech-language pathologist is we literally count. We, maybe, provide the
opportunity where they can have the response. Right. And it feels so long
but you actually count one, two, three, you count all the way to ten silently in
your head before you present another prompt or another question or something.
Give them so much time because it might need they might need that much time
yeah muster all their courage to communicate verbally with you. There's
another psychological reason why this works and it's called "desensitization".
While they're feeling that anxiety, if you jump in and rescue them, right then,
it actually reinforces the anxiety. if you'll allow them to feel it now it's
not intense, it's mild at this point. They're considering responding to your
prompts, so give them some time. Now whether they respond or not is not as
important as whether you give them the time to respond and without any pressure,
expectation, you're simply pausing and you've got a pleasant face and you're
not staring them down. Okay. In fact it's better with kids who are experiencing
selective mutism it's better to focus on a prop of some kind. So you might be
playing a game for example and you've given them an opportunity to respond
about that game. You put your focus on the prop or the game - while you're counting your ten -
and you're counting silently and there's no pressure. Okay. If you're
looking at them or you know doing the Kung Fu Panda staredown then we're
making it worse. So focus on the problem, allow the time for the hesitation.
And this leads perfectly into the next don't. Say I gave him the whole ten seconds
after my prompt and they didn't respond. Do not punish them for not speaking.
Right. It's a huge important don't. Don't punish them for not speaking. We're going
to be fairly nonchalant about this whole thing. Part of the clue that I think is
hard to catch on to in selective mutism is that it can't be about me as a parent.
It can't be about "I'm so proud of you". It can't be about "I'm so disappointed in you".
So we're not going to - or even "I'm afraid you're gonna miss out on everything
so I'm going to take over". Right, exactly! So we're going to detach the parental
emotion from the response and we're not going to reward or punish the speaking
or not speaking it will simply be whatever. Which leads me into the next
part. And this is a part we have to be kind of careful with because allowing
for natural consequences to occur with a detachment from my own emotions puts it
back into more of a choice realm for that child. Let me give you a quick
example and I've used this with several of the kids very effectively. Mom or dad
takes the kids out for ice cream. Everybody gets to have whatever they
order. Now this is something you might want to work up to because that's kind
of a high anxiety situation for a lot of kids and for others maybe not so much.
But we're going to detach the emotion from it and allow time. "Would you like to
order something?" And then count silently to ten and if not then that's fine move
on to the next child. Now this is going to be hard, right? Yeah. We're not doing it
as a punishment. We're simply allowing some natural
consequences to happen because here's the thing: There will be natural
consequences outside of your control. We want them to
learn in a loving environment to face some of those fears and overcome some of
their own internal barriers to speaking in a way that's not attached to my
emotions as a parent. That makin sense to you? This is something that can empower
your child. And you know what I've seen some kids move through this in a way
that they feel confident. Yeah. And they are so grateful that they were able to
overcome some of the hurdles that they were facing. It's a complicated issue but
I think some of these things could help. if you found this helpful would you
please share our channel this community with other conscious parents that you're
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