The Teachers’ Role in the Assessment of Selective Mutism and Anxiety Disorders

Abstract

Selective mutism (SM) is a childhood disorder characterized by failure to speak in social situations, despite there being an expectation to speak and the capacity to do so. There has been a focus on elucidating the differences between SM and anxiety disorder (ANX) in the recent literature. Although children with SM exhibit more symptoms at school than at home, the assessment of SM typically does not involve teacher reports. There is also a lack of research to help us better understand how to best support students with SM in the classroom, and linking assessment to intervention. The Teacher Telephone Interview: Selective Mutism and Anxiety in the School Setting (TTI-SM) was developed by a group of researchers across three large children's hospitals in Canada, within specialized ANXs Clinics, with the goal of addressing several of these diagnostic and treatment issues. Child participants (ages 6-11) were referred for SM (n = 19) or ANX (n = 10). Findings revealed that the SM subscale of the TTI-SM has acceptable psychometric properties. Scores on the SM subscale between the two groups of children were statistically significant Downloaded from 2 Canadian Journal of School Psychology t(29) = −3.67, p < .001, η 2 = .33, suggesting that the SM subscale was able to distinguish between children with SM and ANX. Given the promising findings, and possible uses of this tool for assessment and intervention, the TTI-SM warrants further research. The role of the teacher in the assessment of children with SM and anxiety disorders, and future directions are discussed.

Measuring and Predicting Divergent Thinking With a Self-Report Questionnaire, Teacher Rating Scale, and Self-Regulated Learning Microanalysis

“…Although one might suspect larger correlations when raters respond to the same items, the size of correlations that we found are similar to prior research using both a teacher and student version of the SIGS-C. Moreover, research examining multiple informant ratings of more objective and observable behaviors has often found only modest relationships (Miller et al, 2014). Thus, we expect minimal rater agreement when students and teachers respond about internal, cognitive processes.…”

“…Furthermore, they tend to demonstrate strong psychometric properties and are efficient to administer and score. Teacher ratings are critical because SRQs may be prone to children's inaccurate reporting, and teacher ratings provide an additional, external data source to corroborate evidence (Miller et al, 2014;Winne & Jamieson-Noel, 2002). Further, teacher ratings systematically guide teachers to consider specific aspects when assessing students' creativity, which is helpful because teachers' beliefs of creativity may not match researchers' definitions (Rubenstein et al, 2018;Westby & Dawson, 1995).…”

The Heterogeneity of Selective Mutism: A Primer for a More Refined Approach

“…School-based assessments are important as well and can include a child's interactions with peers and teachers (including threats from others), avoided situations, and performance on different academic tasks (Hua and Major, 2016 ). Formal assessment of intellectual/achievement and speech/language abilities are often conducted at school as well and can focus on performance on non-verbal tasks, receptive language, and written narratives as well as academic records and teacher interviews (Martinez et al, 2015 ).…”

Diagnosing selective mutism: a critical review of measures for clinical practice and research

“…The Teacher Telephone Interview (TTI-SM [62]) is described and evaluated by Martinez et al (see Table 3, Study ID: 53) [63] to assess SM and anxiety in the school.…”