Selective Mutism Treatment

What is selective mutism?

Most children will become shy around strangers or in new situations. However, as such exposure progresses, shyness can begin to dwindle, where self-confidence and awareness reside.

For a child with selective mutism, such development can be impossible in certain situations or engagements, where the inability to speak or communicate clearly becomes apparent.

Selective mutism is found to affect every 1 in 140 children, where signs usually show between the ages of 2 and 4. While it can be difficult to diagnose, as personalities and characters are still developing at such an early age, there are clear signs that secure the diagnosis of selective mutism.

It’s a complex anxiety disorder, as such children can engage. Yet, in certain situations or with certain people, an overwhelming sense of anxiety and fear is known to engulf them, making it impossible to verbally interact.

Causations of selective mutism are unclear, yet links to pre-existing symptoms of social anxiety, phobias and autism are high in children, indicating that susceptibility to stress and pressure is also high.

If untreated, selective mutism can be extremely challenging to live with, down to its unpredictable nature, its controlling traits and its unhealthy manifestation. Here’s where selective mutism treatment should be accepted, to reduce adulthood suffering.

Selective mutism in children and adults

Selective mutism in children will usually be identifiable once a sense of socialisation is experienced. This will be found in school, nursery or hobbies, where the inability to engage with those outside of their comfort zone is one of the clearest indicators. Common symptoms of selective mutism in children include:

• A withdrawn personality
• Clingy
• Anxious and uneasy
• Disengaged from other children/activities
• Stubbornness
• The inability to communicate with certain people
• A strong likelihood of freezing, instead of engaging
• Socially awkward, deviating from general shyness

Many of the above symptoms may be put down to signs of autism, poor parenting, or excessive isolation as a child.

However, while experienced on a consistent basis, along with clear signs of anxiety, a selective mutism diagnosis will instead be very likely. There in fact isn’t a correlation between such symptoms and parenting styles/abuse.

In children, selective mutism is more common in those with speech or hearing difficulties, is a development of PTSD, where fear has ingrained within certain engagements, and where a subconscious connection forms to influence the manifestation of shutting down.

While treatable and manageable, unfortunately, selective mutism in adults is also common, where symptoms reside into later life. Understandably, this can be extremely difficult to live with and to maintain a quality life.

As such signs are easier to spot in adults, down to developmental factors, a diagnosis of selective mutism, followed by treatment is easier to make.

No matter who experiences symptoms of selective mutism, it is a complex disorder that causes a significant transfer of early-life anxiety, onto a sense of speech and connectivity. Through that, selective mutism treatment will be required to desensitise such transfer.

Selective mutism can be difficult to comprehend without experiencing it or knowing of a child with symptoms. Yet, it is more common than imaginable, causing crippling anxiety for children.

Development is very important, supporting the need for selective mutism treatment, which we offer here at Nova Recovery. Without such a step, adulthood can be impacted by common symptoms, making interactivity difficult to normalise.

Promote positive reinforcements through talking therapies for selective mutism.