My 5 Year Old Daughter Who Does Not Speak At School by Shawna

Andy's Story

I have appreciated reading and participating in the Selective Mutism Email Group for several years and because of that I would like to share my son's "story" with new members and parents of younger selectively mute children.

When my son, Andy, was very young I was extremely worried about his future. I am now very pleased with the progress my 13 year-old son has made in overcoming selctive mutism in most settings.

Andy was identified as "handicapped" because of his selective mustism when he was three years-old. His daycare teachers noted that he was "nonverbal" and in fact his language and social skills were delayed.

As a very worried parent, I was very concerned that very little progress appeared to be made at school in Andy's speech from age three to age eight. I did not know how to get my son out of special education classes. Andy only whispered to teachers and although he raised his hand in class, his answers to questions were either inaudible to the class or nonexistent at school. His only friend his age was a cousin he saw from time to time ouside of school.

At age 8, Andy was moved to a new neighborhood public school and placed in fewer special education classes. He had resource room for language arts but was doing well in math in a regular classroom.

The homeroom teacher was convinced that Andy was very much behind. The speech teacher thought I was at "fault" because she had read an article about Elective Mutism which suggested that parents could sometimes be blamed for a child's mutism. The speech teacher recommended that my son be dropped from speech classes.

Despite these initial evaluations, Andy subsequently made a great deal of progress. From about age 8 to 10 Andy was prescribed Prozac. His first steps in speaking to "strangers" developed while he was on medication. He first talked freely to friends at church and he talked to me in movie theaters. He began speaking in restaurants and to the psychiatrist he was seeing.

However, at school and at selected relatives' homes he continued to only whisper. We introuduced Andy to talking louder to his grandparents through an audiotape method I saw described in an article by Dr. Blum in a psychiatric journal.

In fifth grade Andy changed to a new medication, Zoloft, after having stopped the Prozac for a while. Dr. Blum prepared an "audiofeedforward" tape for Andy in fifth grade. At the end of the fifth grade year I attended a poetry reading at school where Andy recited a rehearsed poem he had written, in front of his class and to a group of invited parents. I was very pleased and I thought we could safely drop Andy's medications. However, I later concluded that that was premature.

Andy's progress in speaking at school slowed a bit in sixth grade when he moved on to the Middle School. Last year I asked Andy's psychiatrist to prescribe Paxil because of the advertising I had seen about the drug and its success in treating social phobias.

Andy is now taking Paxil and he is doing very well academically. He has some new good friends from church and school. This week Andy gave another successful oral presentation before his class at school. He is doing very well in Spanish, a second language and he has been on the honor roll consistently and performing in band and orchestra.

We anticipate that we will eventually be able to disontinue the Paxil. In the meantime, however, I am very pleased with the progress my son has made in overcoming selective mutism. Clearly, his progress has come very slowly. Some children, fortunately, are able to overcome anxiety and speak in social settings at a much earler age.