• Replies 29 replies
  • Subscribers 25 subscribers
  • Views 13942 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Selective Mutism - any advice?

Pageant

Hello everyone,

My eight year old daughter is soon to be assessed for ASD and I expect there will be a diagnosis of ASD/Aspergers.

One of the most significant problems she faces is selective mutism.  She is terrified of talking to people she doesn't know well (i.e. everyone except parents, brother and one friend she made at her old school).  Even Grandma/Grandad have trouble getting her to speak, although she speaks freely with her immediate family.  Everything I've read suggests it's an anxiety response and she is extremely self-conscious in general.  With us though, she's a different girl - happy, funny and giggly a lot of the time.  She'll occasionally be like this with others, but it's fleeting and never seems to last.

Anyone got any ideas for how to help?  I've read a lot about selective mutism unrelated to autism, but the strategies there suggest something more of a pure phobia about speaking.  With my daughter, I think it's different - it's anxiety about social communication (not surprisingly)...  I'm worried it could get worse, but don't know how to stem the tide of any regression (mercifully, she just recently started talking to her childminder again who she goes to once a week, but I've been worried there's been a general regressive trend lately, aside from this).

Any ideas would be very welcome.  Autism-related literature on the subject is thin on the ground - or I'm looking in the wrong places....

Parents

  • Well first of all, well done for ploughing on with the ASD assessment.  I wish we had done that when our child was 8 years old.  I complained for years to his school that he appeared to speak a lot at home, but not to anyone at school, and that he did not see any friends outside school.  They just made noises about it seeming to be improving a little, and just left it.  

    I finally took him to see his GP when he was 8.  I took in a leaflet about selective mutism to show him as well (apologising for bringing in Googled material to a doctor).  At that stage I knew very little about autism, so I didn't suspect it. The GP saw our child, spoke to him a bit, and then said "he's OK, he's just quiet, there's no point referring him to CAMHS".  Four years later he was in a psychiatric ward in hospital, and finally got his Aspergers diagnosis. 

    Our child (now 15) still doesn't speak to strangers much, but he is able to answer questions.  But he has more serious mental health issues, so we can't really worry too much about this any more.  All I can say is that you will probably be amazed how much your child changes when they get to the age around 12.  Try and get to see a Speech and Language Therapist.  You might need to go through CAMHS to do this - where I live, usually an SLT would do the actual autism diagnosis anyway.  I've no idea why, I would have thought a doctor would diagnose it, but there you go. 

Reply

  • Well first of all, well done for ploughing on with the ASD assessment.  I wish we had done that when our child was 8 years old.  I complained for years to his school that he appeared to speak a lot at home, but not to anyone at school, and that he did not see any friends outside school.  They just made noises about it seeming to be improving a little, and just left it.  

    I finally took him to see his GP when he was 8.  I took in a leaflet about selective mutism to show him as well (apologising for bringing in Googled material to a doctor).  At that stage I knew very little about autism, so I didn't suspect it. The GP saw our child, spoke to him a bit, and then said "he's OK, he's just quiet, there's no point referring him to CAMHS".  Four years later he was in a psychiatric ward in hospital, and finally got his Aspergers diagnosis. 

    Our child (now 15) still doesn't speak to strangers much, but he is able to answer questions.  But he has more serious mental health issues, so we can't really worry too much about this any more.  All I can say is that you will probably be amazed how much your child changes when they get to the age around 12.  Try and get to see a Speech and Language Therapist.  You might need to go through CAMHS to do this - where I live, usually an SLT would do the actual autism diagnosis anyway.  I've no idea why, I would have thought a doctor would diagnose it, but there you go. 

Children
No Data