Psychosocial Characteristics of Electively Mute Persons Part 1

Abstract

Pustrom and Speers (1964) reported that a child they treated received a skull fracture at nine months as a result of falling out of bed. Later, tonsillitis prevented him from regularly attending school. In the same study, another child underwent herniorrhaphies at eight months and again at two years. One male elective mute in a clinical study by Browne et al. (1963) developed urticaria at 16 months and was hospitalized at 22 months. Another client in the same study was hospitalized for six weeks after developing a lung infection and when she was released from hospital she refused to talk to anyone. These researchers interpreted the mutistic response of the girl as a reaction to the separation from her mother, and as an attempt by the child to punish her parents for hospitalizing her.