In contrast, traumatic mutism occurs when a child develops mutism in all situations because of a trauma experienced, like when the child was physically abused or witnessed an accident. The child is unable to process the traumatic event and becomes mute in all settings.
Children with traumatic mutism usually develop mutism suddenly in all situations. An example would be a child who witnesses the death of a grandparent or other traumatic event, is unable to process the event, and becomes mute in all settings.
While it might seem like a person with psychogenic mutism is simply refusing to speak, they actually feel physically unable to speak, and forcing the person to speak is unlikely to work. Some of the causes of psychogenic mutism may be general anxiety or past trauma.
Mutism may be due to apraxia, that is, problems with coordination of muscles involved in speech. Another cause may be a medical condition impacting the physical structures involved in speech, for example, loss of voice due to the injury, paralysis, or illness of the larynx.
Researchers are still learning about factors that can lead to selective mutism, such as: An anxiety disorder. Poor family relationships. Untreated psychological issues.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with dissociative features has also been associated as a potential precursor of selective mutism. Although it is an uncommon explanation for selective mutism, several cases of children who experienced severe abuse and trauma fit the classification of selective mutism.
Selective mutism (SM) is an anxiety disorder in which a person who is otherwise capable of speech becomes unable to speak when exposed to specific situations, specific places, or to specific people, one or multiple of which serving as triggers. This is caused by the freeze response.
Another misconception is that a child with selective mutism is controlling or manipulative, or has autism. There's no relationship between selective mutism and autism, although a child may have both.
After a coma lasting from 5 to 25 days, the seven patients who suffered from post-traumatic mutism went through a period of total absence of verbal production lasting from 5 to 94 days, associated with the recovery of non-verbal communication skills and emotional vocalization.
Mutism can be a tricky diagnosis to make. Sometimes the culprit is purely physical: damage to the brain and/or speech muscles can leave a person mute. Sometimes the culprit appears to be emotional or mental. Other times, you'll run into some combination of the two.
At the same time, PTSD symptoms may create problems with trust or make it hard to talk through problems. Learn how PTSD affects relationships and read tips about how you can support someone with PTSD.
Often, survivors of trauma have difficulty not only expressing themselves but listening and comprehending what is being said to them. It's not uncommon for survivors who are hyperaware of their surroundings to lose focus and disassociate from the present.
The brain becomes somewhat disorganized and overwhelmed because of the trauma, while the body goes into a survival mode and shuts down the higher reasoning and language structures of the brain. The result of the metabolic shutdown is a profound imprinted stress response.
Silence intensifies the impact of trauma, and trauma that goes unspoken, un-witnessed, and unclaimed too often "outs itself" as more violence to self or others.
Damage to certain parts of the brain from traumatic brain injuries can lead to akinetic mutism. If the frontal lobe is damaged, akinetic mutism is believed to be caused by hyperpathia, which causes pain or unpleasant sensations from normal stimuli, so patients avoid moving.
Among the most effective methods of treating symptoms of selective mutism is CBT. This action-based and problem-solving talking therapy is carried out by highly trained therapists, where you or your older child can benefit from further understanding of the disorder and anxiety in general.
Mutism is defined as an inability or unwillingness to speak, resulting in the absence or marked paucity of verbal output. It is a common presenting symptom seen in various disorders, including psychiatric as well as medical disorders.
Mutism, simply put, is when someone is not able to speak. Some people have total mutism, which means they can't verbally communicate at all. This is usually due to some form of brain damage or severe speech disorder. Selective mutism means that the failure to speak only occurs in some situations.
In current classification systems, selective mutism (SM) is included in the broad anxiety disorders category. Indeed, there is abundant evidence showing that anxiety, and social anxiety in particular, is a prominent feature of SM.
In some cases, anxiety can affect one's ability to speak clearly and concisely when interacting with others, causing speech to be slower or faster than normal, and in some cases, speech can become jumbled or slurred.
Shutting down emotions can be a normal part of human experience, as a coping strategy in stressful situations. Under high stress, it allows your body and brain to protect itself from perceived threats or harm.
Conversion and somatoform types of dissociation may also occur in people with DID or DDNOS/OSDD. Thus, they may experience physical symptoms affecting their sensory or motor functions for which no physical cause in the present can be identified – e.g. blindness, deafness, mutism, paralysis, pain, seizures.