Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
ARTICLESClinical Distinctions Between Selective Mutism and Social Phobia: An Investigation of Childhood Psychopathology
Section snippets
Participants
The sample consisted of 23 children diagnosed with social phobia matched by age with 23 children diagnosed with social phobia and a comorbid diagnosis of selective mutism (hereafter called the selective mutism group). Data were collected during pretreatment assessments from participants involved in research studies conducted at two separate anxiety centers. Some of the ads used to advertise availability of the treatment programs described symptoms of anxiety disorders and others specifically
RESULTS
Group differences were analyzed with analyses of variance. Because of variable N values, only subjects who completed each particular instrument or assessment were included in the analysis of that variable. No averaging or substitution of group means was used to correct for missing data. Thus, the number of subjects for each variable is slightly different. The number of subjects included in each of the analyses is presented in the tables below. It should be noted that the ratio of statistical
DISCUSSION
Currently, the most common explanation for selective mutism is that these children exhibit such an extreme degree of social anxiety that they are incapable of speech. However, previous studies have only examined the clinical profiles of these children in comparison with a normal control group (Black and Uhde, 1995;Dummit et al., 1997). Thus, to date, conclusions about the relationship between selective mutism and social phobia have been drawn without the benefit of a direct comparison. To our
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Cited by (89)
Similarities and differences between young children with selective mutism and social anxiety disorder
2020, Behaviour Research and TherapyCitation Excerpt :Such a reduced language confidence may heighten anxiety in situations where speech is anticipated and/or expected (Manassis et al., 2003) and this may be especially true when there is an audience or the situation is novel. In contrast to speaking situations, some authors have questioned whether children with SM experience anxiety in social situations that do not require speech (Carlson et al., 2008; Yeganeh et al., 2003), in that way pointing to a distinction from children with more general SAD. The DSM-5 guidelines for differential diagnosis of SM and SAD note that “individuals with selective mutism may fail to speak because of fear of negative evaluation, but do not fear negative evaluation in social situations where no speaking is required (e.g. are responsive in non-verbal play)” (American Psychiatric Association (APA), 2013, p. 207).
Selective mutism
2019, Pediatric Anxiety DisordersEffects of anxiety, language skills, and cultural adaptation on the development of selective mutism
2018, Journal of Communication DisordersCitation Excerpt :Yeganeh and colleagues conducted two studies to examine the association between SM and social anxiety. In both studies, they did not find any significant differences between children with SM and children with isolated social anxiety disorder on self-report measures (Yeganeh, Beidel, Turner, Pina, & Silverman, 2003; Yeganeh, Beidel, & Turner, 2006; see also Manassis et al., 2003). Significant differences were found only for parent and clinician ratings.
Phasic Versus Tonic Irritability and Associations with Family Accommodation Among Youth with Selective Mutism: A Latent Profile Analysis
2024, Research on Child and Adolescent PsychopathologyLong-term outcomes of selective mutism: a systematic literature review
2023, BMC Psychiatry
This research was supported in part by NIMH grant R01 MH 53703 and MH 60332.