Elective Mutism is a rare disorder of childhood which is normally found in the context of severe family pathology and/or a multiplicity of individual pathology. However, the case study presented here represents an instance of elective mutism which does not have the normal features of attending pathology. The precipitating factors in the young girl's background all relate to common features of missionary life: emigration, bilingualism, and in this case trilingualism. Included in this article is a brief literature review as well as a discussion of how this pathology in a missions context is similar to, yet different from, other instances of elective
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