Abstract
Selective mutism (SM) is a psychiatric diagnostic term used to describe children who pervasively do not speak in certain social situations where speaking would be expected. For the diagnosis to be made, this reluctant or absent speaking must (a) have been evident for more than one month, excluding the first month in school; (b) not be due to a communication, pervasive developmental or psychotic disorder, or insufficient knowledge of the language and social conventions associated with the context of non-speaking; and (c) be judged to cause functional difficulties in terms of educational attainment and social communication (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).
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Recommended reading
• Elizur, Y., & Perednik, R. (2003). Prevalence and description of selective mutism in immigrant and native families: A controlled study. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 42(12), 1451–1459.
• McHolm, A. E., Cunningham, C. E., & Vanier, M. K. (2005). Helping your child with selective mutism. Oakland: New Harbinger Publication.
• Muskett, T, Perkins, M., Clegg, J., & Body, R. (2010). Inflexibility as an interactional phenomenon: Using conversation analysis to re-examine a symptom of autism. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 24, 1–16.
• Sharp, W. G., Sherman, C., & Gross, A. M. (2007). Selective mutism and anxiety: A review of the current conceptualization of the disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 21(4), 568–579.
• Yeganeh, R., Beidel, D., & Turner, S. (2006). Selective mutism: More than social anxiety? Depression and Anxiety, 23, 117–123.
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© 2015 Hanna Schäfer and Tom Muskett
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Schäfer, H., Muskett, T. (2015). Interlocutor Influence on the Communication Behaviours Associated with Selective Mutism. In: O’Reilly, M., Lester, J.N. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Child Mental Health. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137428318_27
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137428318_27
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