This chapter describes a creative method for treating children with selective mutism. It is a case study of a 5 year, 8 month old child who has been silent since the irst day of school for 2.5 years. No one, for 2.5 years, has ever heard him speak. He used to stare at his classmates as they played but did not participate. His mother described his language as normal and behavior as quiet. When the researcher irst saw him he was wearing a "Superman" costume. The researcher used the child's ambition to be superman as a platform to think creatively to treat his deiciency. He spoke in 1 hour and 30 minutes. The single session treatment successfully treated the child and he was observed afterwards for 2 months, no relapses, and he continued speaking. To maintain the success, the teacher and the student-teacher were advised to use the "descriptive language approach." He was observed regularly.Keywords: selective, anxiety disorder, early intervention, treating using superheroes' costumes, descriptive language approach IntroductionSelective mutism (SM) is a condition of anxiety disorder most often diagnosed in children. According to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) [1], this condition occurs when a child persistently fails to speak in certain social situations where speaking is required, such as school, sport ields, church, restaurants, parks, or stores. It is a rare disorder afecting preschool-and school-aged children [2]. Children with selective mutism are generally quiet in nature. The SM child chooses silence rather than a deal with the anxiety of the inability to speak in public, despite the child's ability to speak normally at home. When the child encounters guests, relatives, or school populations, he or she turns to silence. The selective mute © 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.children have no problem in language formation; they speak ine in their homes and around people they are comfortable with but their silence accelerates their language developmental delay. Some children who are shy or who have social phobia also have selective mutism. About 1% of children referred to mental health professionals are diagnosed with this disorder. This percentage equals between 0.03% and 0.02% of the general population of children. Selective mutism is a serious disorder which requires qualiied professionals in mental illness [3,4]. Symptoms of selective mutismDespite the long history of deducting SM, the disorder is still not clearly understood, and much debate among mental health specialists continues regarding its appropriate classiication and causes. Some of the major symptoms of selective mutism besides refusal to speak in speciic situations are excessive shyness and anxiety, clinging behaviors to parents and safe signiicant others, fear of social e...
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