Felicity and I are very excited to launch The Selective Mutism Clinic at Melbourne Children’s Psychology Clinic.
After a number of years of discussion, and after much work and collaboration, we have created a service to meet the unique needs of children with selective mutism, and their families. Given we see so many children with selective mutism, and a number of us have a passion for working with these children, it made sense to formalise our approach and ensure that we are delivering the best possible service to these children and their families.
We also aim to increase awareness about selective mutism in the broader community including medical, health and educational professionals.
Some of the myths that we have commonly heard over the years include:
“They can talk, they choosing not to, they are just being stubborn and controlling, you need to stop talking for them!” This is a common one that many parents have experienced. In fact, we know that selective mutism is due to anxiety that can, in some situations, become immobilising for the child. We also know that parenting is not the cause and that pressuring your kid to talk does not actually change their behaviour.
“Don’t worry about it, your child is just shy,they will grow out of it.”
Unfortunately this is not the case, yet many parents report hearing this advice from their GP or child’s teacher. Both the research and our clinical experience suggests that if it does not resolve in the first weeks to months of entering school, then chances are the problem will persist without treatment. We also know that children who are left untreated are far more resistant to intervention in adolescence. “If they can’t talk, it must be due to trauma, they will need years of therapy.”
This is a very outdated view and is not supported in the literature. The normal development of selective mutism arises out of extreme social anxiety and inhibition, not from a traumatic event (even though Hollywood may have us believe otherwise!). Furthermore, long term therapy is not required and most children respond to time limited short-term therapy.
“If your child isn’t talking, it must be a language or speech delay.”
Often children with selective mutism are referred for speech therapy on the assumption that they have a speech and language delay.
Whilst this can be the case for a very small minority, most children with selective mutism are within the average range for speech and language skills. Unfortunately, when assessed for speech and language skills, many children with selective mutism will perform poorly due to their inability to speak to strangers and their fear of failure and scrutiny. Of note, MCPC uses structured speech and language screening tools to ensure that we thoroughly assess each child.
For more information about our selective mutism clinic at MCPC, please click here.
