Selective Mutism

I haven't written for a few months.  Writer's block! I think it's a combination of the fact that I'm so far behind I don't know where to start, and that my blog header is two years old. Everytime I look at it, I feel guilty that Owen is a year old and I haven't updated our picture or put his name on it! So sad.  I was looking through my blog today looking for a certain story, and I became motivated to write again.  I'm so glad I wrote those things down! I'm sad that I haven't been doing that so I'm about to catch up from the last few months!

I have to start somewhere! So I'll start here.

A few months ago I registered Hayden for kindergarten. Then the panic set in, like so many first time moms. :)  I might not technically be considered a first time mom anymore, but with Hayden I'm always a first time mom.  I just couldn't figure out how I was going to send my first born baby on a bus to school.

If you've seen Hayden at a playgroup or in a group of people, you know that he is not your typical happy playful kid.  The truth is that Hayden has a lot of social anxiety and he never feels comfortable in groups like that.  I started to ask his preschool teachers more about his behavior, and found out that his teacher had never heard him say a word the whole year.  First off, I was pretty ticked that they didn't think that was something important to tell me.  Second, I started to worry a lot more.  How do I send him to school if he can't advocate for himself?  What if he has to go to the bathroom?  Will he make friends?  Will he be an easy target for bullies? Sure, he doesn't cry the whole time, but that's still no way to live - uncomfortable and scared all day.  I was a super shy kid, so I can understand how he felt.  I knew that Hayden really wanted to participate at school and with other kids.  When we took them to our city's Easter egg hunt, he cried when we left.  He said he really wanted to get the eggs but he was just too scared.  It's just heartbreaking to see him so sad, and holding himself back so much and then feeling left out.  

This is preschool graduation.  He refused to get up and stand on the table like the other kids.  He wouldn't answer the question of why he liked school.  He stared at the ground and later came crying to us. 

All I wanted was a professional I could talk to.  Everyone kept telling me that they were shy, or their kid was shy, or their cousin's girlfriend's aunt's mom was shy, and they grew out of it, so Hayden would too.  Needless to say, this was pretty annoying to me. This was different. I just had a gut feeling that there was something more to it. I remembered one night that my cousin works at Kids on the Move in Orem and helps kids with autism, so I hoped that she would send me in the direction of where I could get help, or she could help me with her child development background.  I had a really good chat with her that night, and it felt so good to have someone finally listen to me and believe me!  She asked if she could come observe him at preschool, to which I gladly agreed!  

The day she came to observe him was eye opening for me.  I think I knew it was more than just shy, but she said she found a few things that really concerned her.  Hayden didn't talk the whole time. His body language made it obvious that he was very uncomfortable.  He wouldn't play with him when she tried to engage him.  He would have nothing to do with that.  In the playroom, he went up and down the slide the whole time without interacting with anyone else.  He covered his ears during music time, which indicates a sensory overload.  I did know that he is very sensitive to noises and pretty much hates anything loud.  We went through some developmental milestones that he should be doing at his age, and he was way below all the social ones.  Because his anxiety held him back so much, he was at the social level of an 18 month old.  He can interact just fine with family members here, but with other children he just doesn't know how.  Laurie told me that he sounded a lot like another girl she had been working with who had selective mutism.  I had read about that before, but looked it up again.  It sounded exactly like him!

"Selective mutism (SM) is a psychiatric disorder in which a person who is normally capable of speech is unable to speak in given situations or to specific people. Selective mutism usually co-exists with shyness or social anxiety.

Children and adults with selective mutism are fully capable of speech and understanding language but fail to speak in certain situations, though speech is expected of them.^[2] The behaviour may be perceived as shyness or rudeness by others. A child with selective mutism may be completely silent at school for years but speak quite freely or even excessively at home. ...

Selective mutism is by definition characterized by the following:

• Consistent failure to speak in specific social situations (in which there is an expectation for speaking, e.g., at school) despite speaking in other situations.
• The disturbance interferes with educational or occupational achievement or with social communication.
• The duration of the disturbance is at least 1 month (not limited to the first month of school).
• The failure to speak is not due to a lack of knowledge of, or comfort with, the spoken language required in the social situation.
• The disturbance is not better accounted for by a communication disorder (e.g., stuttering) and does not occur exclusively during the course of a pervasive developmental disorder,schizophrenia, or other psychotic disorder.

Other symptoms

Besides lack of speech, other common behaviors and characteristics displayed by selectively mute people include:

• Shyness, social anxiety, fear of social embarrassment, and/or social isolation and withdrawal
• Difficulty maintaining eye contact
• Blank expression and reluctance to smile
• Stiff and awkward movements
• Difficulty expressing feelings, even to family members
• Tendency to worry more than most people of the same age
• Desire for routine and dislike of changes
• Sensitivity to noise and crowds
• Moodiness
• Sleep problems

On the positive side, many sufferers have:

• Above-average intelligence, perception, or inquisitiveness
• Creativity and a love for art or music
• Empathy and sensitivity to others' thoughts and feelings
• A strong sense of right and wrong"

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_mutism

Everything on that list describes Hayden, except for sleep problems!  I thought it was funny that it described him even to his love of art and music.  He really is an amazing boy.

I was so overwhelmed at this point.  What next? How did I help him?  I was looking at different schools, searching many websites and forums, and just reading whatever I could.  I got overwhelmed and emotional so many times doing this.  I just didn't know the right answers and I was so heartbroken for him.

One of the first things Derrick and I decided to do was to talk to the child psychologist at the school we had planned on him attending this fall.  We met with her and it was such a relief!  She was wonderful, and had so much information for us.  They had a few kids in their school with selective mutism so she was familiar with it and had found some great success with certain techniques they used.  I was so glad to have been able to meet with her and we felt really good about sending him there.

Around this time I started observing Halle and noticed that she had a lot of the same characteristics as Hayden, and I suspected that she also had selective mutism, without quite the anxiety Hayden has.  She doesn't talk to anyone in public.  It could be partly because she learned that behavior from Hayden, but it still worried me.

We started using some techniques and decided to find Hayden's great motivator to try something new.  It was his turn to give the scripture during sharing time at primary, so we thought that was a good opportunity.  We practiced at home and told him we believed in him and that he could do things that were hard.  We promised him that no one would laugh at him, and that if he said the scripture we would make brownies after church and take him to the store to buy a Thomas train.  The big day came, and Owen was sick so just Derrick took him to church.  He stood up with him to give the scripture... and Hayden froze, like so many times before.  His sunbeams teacher from the year before stood up next to him and whispered to him to just tell her the scripture.  So he did! He looked at her, but he spoke into the microphone!  The teachers cried... a few told me it was so special and that it was the first time they heard his voice.  I was so sad to miss it, but so proud!  He did it! This was a HUGE step!  It also gave him a great boost of confidence and he learned that if he does that, people won't laugh at him.  Now he's completely fine with giving the prayer and scripture at church!

We also decided next to use a technique that many suggested to us.  We made a chart for Hayden  and Halle.  On the back was a list of things they could do to earn a sticker for their chart.  It includes things like giving high fives or shaking hands with a friend, waving, smiling, singing, talking, and participating in any way at church.  They got to choose a reward for filling up the chart.  Hayden picked a movie, pizza, and popcorn family night.  Halle picked snow cones.

 Yes, I used a potty chart! haha!

 

I'm so very artistic, right? haha.

 I can't believe the progress I've seen!  It worked! It makes me tear up when I think about how far he has come in the last few months.  Hayden regularly talks in his class now.  He says the prayers, he answers questions, he gives high fives to his buddies, he volunteers to come participate in sharing time, and he doesn't have uncomfortable body language.  Halle has also made great strides, although it's not quite the motivator it is for Hayden.  It will come with time! I did see her singing during music time last week.  She came to help during sharing time, and she will say the prayer in her class. I honestly didn't expect to see this much progress so quickly.  At a family reunion we played bingo in a big crowd.  When Hayden got bingo, he stood up and actually yelled, "BINGO!"  I couldn't believe my ears.  Last week I took some paperwork in to his school and took him with me to look around.  His principle asked him his name and he said, "I'm Hayden."  And then corrected him when he said it wrong.  These might seem like silly little things, but they are HUGE steps compared to where he was before.  He has gained a lot of confidence, and I'm so proud that he's doing things that are hard for him.  We have a ways to go... A lot of socializing to catch up on so that he knows how to interact with his peers.  I'm no longer worried to send him to school because I think it can only get better from here on out.