The aim was to examine the outcome of a multimodal treatment for selective mutism (SM). Seven children, aged three–five years, who were referred for SM were included. The treatment started at home and was continued at kindergarten for a maximum of six months, with predefined treatment goals in terms of speaking levels, from I (“Speaks to the therapist in a separate room with a parent present”) through to VI (“Speaks in all kindergarten settings without the therapist present”). The outcome measures were the teacher-reported School Speech Questionnaire (SSQ) and the treatment goal obtained (I–VI) six months after the onset of treatment, and the SSQ and Clinical Global Impression Scale (CGI) at one-year follow-up. Six children spoke in all kindergarten settings (VI) after a mean of 14 weeks treatment. One child, with more extensive neuro-developmental delay, spoke in some settings only (V). The mean SSQ score was 0.59 (SD = 0.51) at baseline compared with 2.68 (SD = 0.35) at the six-month evaluation and 2.26 (SD = 0.93) at one-year follow-up. The mean CGI score at baseline was 4.43 (SD = 0.79) compared with 1.14 (SD = 0.38) at follow-up. Home- and kindergarten-based treatment appears to be promising.
AchenbachT.A.RescorlaL.A. (2000). Manual for the ASEBA preschool forms & profiles. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont.
2.
AchenbachT. A.RescorlaL.A. (2001). Manual for the ASEBA school age forms & profiles. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont.
3.
AlbanoA. M.SilvermanW. K. (1996). Anxiety disorders interview schedule for DSM-IV. San Antonio, TX: Graywind Publications Inc.
4.
American Psychiatric Association (APA) (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text revised). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
5.
AnstendigK. (1998). Selective mutism: A review of the treatment literature by modality from 1980–1996. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 35, 381–391.
6.
BergmanR.L.KellerM.L.PiacentiniJ.BergmanA. J. (2008). The development and psychometric properties of the Selective Mutism Questionnaire. Journal of Clinical Child Adolescent Psychology, 37, 456–464.
7.
BergmanR. L.KellerM.WoodJ.PiacentiniJ.McCrackenJ. T. (2001, October). Selective Mutism Questionnaire (SMQ): Development and findings. Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Honolulu, Hawaii.
8.
BergmanR. L.PiacentiniJ.McCrackenJ. T. (2002). Prevalence and description of selective mutism in a school based sample. Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, 41, 938–946.
9.
BishopD.V.M. (2003). The Children’s Communication Checklist, version 2 (CCC-2). London: Psychological Corporation.
10.
BögelsS.M.AldenL.BeidelD.C.ClarkL.A.PineD.S.SteinM.B.VonckenM. (2010). Social anxiety disorder: questions and answers for the DSM-V. Depression and Anxiety, 27, 169–179.
11.
BussA. H.PlominR. (1984). Temperament: Early developing personality traits. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
12.
CohanS.L.ChaviraD. A.Shipon-BlumE.HitchcockC.RoeschS.C.SteinM.B. (2008). Refining the classification of children with selective mutism: A latent profile analysis. Journal of Clinical Child Adolescent Psychology, 37, 770–784.
13.
CohanS.L.ChaviraD.A.SteinM.B. (2006). Practitioner review: Psychosocial interventions for children with selective mutism: A critical evaluation of the literature from 1990–2005. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 1085–1097.
14.
CohanS. L.PriceJ.M.SteinM.B. (2006). Suffering in silence: Why a developmental psychopathology perspective on selective mutism is needed. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 27, 341–355.
15.
DaddsM. R.BarrettP. M. (2001). Practitioner review: Psychological management of anxiety disorders in childhood. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 999–1011.
16.
DunnL. M.DunnL. M. (2007). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-IV. San Antonio, TX: Pearson Assessments.
17.
ElizurY.PerednikM.A. (2003). Prevalence and description of selective mutism in immigrant and native families: A controlled study. Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, 42, 1451–1459.
18.
HellandW.A.BiringerE.HellandT.HeimannM. (2009). The usability of a Norwegian adaptation of the Children’s Communication Checklist Second Edition (CCC-2) in differentiating between language impaired and non-language impaired 6- to 12-year-olds. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 50, 287–92.
KristensenH. (2000). Selective mutism and co-morbidity with developmental disorder/delay, anxiety disorder and elimination disorder. Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, 39, 249–256.
21.
KristensenH. (2001). Multiple informants’ report of emotional and behavioural problems in a nation-wide sample of selective mute children and controls. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 10, 35–142.
22.
KristensenH.TorgersenS. (2001). MCMI-II personality traits and symptom traits in parents of children with selective mutism. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110, 648–652.
23.
KristensenH.TorgersenS. (2002). A case-control study of EAS child and parental temperaments in selectively mute children with and without a co-morbid communication disorder. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 56, 347–353.
24.
KrohnD.D.WechsteinS. M.WrightH. L. (1992). A study of the effectiveness of a specific treatment for elective mutism. Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, 3, 711–718.
25.
LangleyA.K.BergmanR.L.McCrackenJ.PiacentiniJ.C. (2004). Impairment in childhood anxiety disorders: Preliminary examination of the child anxiety impact scale - parent version. Journal of Child Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 14, 105–14.
26.
RoidG. H. (2003). Stanford–Binet IQ scales (5th ed.). Itasca, IL: Riverside Publications.
27.
SluckinA.ForemanN.HerbertM. (1991). Behavioural treatment programs & selectivity of speaking at follow-up in a sample of 25 selectively mutes. Australian Psychologist, 26, 132–137.
28.
SPSS Inc. (2006). Statistical package for the social sciences: SPSS 15. Chicago, IL: SPSS Inc.
29.
StraussE.ShermanE. M. S.SpreenO. (2006). A compendium of neuropsychological tests (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
30.
ToppelbergC.O.TaborsP.CogginsA. (2005). Differential diagnosis of selective mutism in bilingual children. Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, 44, 592–595.
31.
VecchioJ.KearneyC. A. (2009). Treating youths with selective mutism with an alternating design of exposure-based practice and contingency management. Behavior Therapy, 40, 380–392.
32.
ZaiderT. I.HeimbergR.G.FrescoD.M.SchneierF.R.LiebowitzM. R. (2003). Evaluation of the clinical global impression scale among individuals with social anxiety disorder. Psychological Medicine, 33, 611–622.
