Customer Reviews

The Silence Within: A Teacher/Parent Guide to Working with Selectively Mute and Shy Children

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is not a guide at all. It is a review of a single case, and even there it focuses only the interventions of the reading teacher, mentioning but not defining the interventions of teachers, parents, and a private psychologist, or others. The vast majority of the book is padded with weekly intervention sheets which document a school year's worth of a small amount of progress; the bigger leaps in progress took place after the school year ended and again, the keys to this change are not defined. Another portion of the book is some Internet research from early 1999.
This book is well hyped and promoted. By the way, if you do decide to buy it, you can save a lot by buying it from the author's website rather than from Amazon (sorry, Amazon, gotta support the author even if I was disappointed by the book).
Try a combination of language pathology resources (finding many baby steps toward speech) and anxiety treatment resources (it's probably not just shyness or control) and tailor interventions to fit YOUR child, and advocate (getting tired of hearing, "she'll grow out of it"?).

If your selectively mute child is younger than 6, this book is not for you. I would recomend the 'Relationship Development Intervention' by Steven E. Gutstein to help you. Excellent program which works on young selectively mute children who still have not developed other related phobias to the pathology.

This book was my first introduction to Selective Mutism. The case history of Nick described my son and our struggles point for point. Without having a caring teacher at the time I was able to implement some of Gails strategy. and I shared this book with a new teacher who was able to follow the very simple and practicle plan for my son. More important than the informtion is this authors' willingness to reach out to everyone who purchases her book. I received a email from the author after bying the book and it has change our lives and open our world to an enormous bundle of information and additional treatment strategies. I recommend this book to every parent with a child with sm. It is a must have for all teachers, as these strategies can be applied with just little effort. This book is for anyone who think that they cannot teach a child with selective Mutism. Just got the supplement, another must have, excellent resource material. Thank you Mrs. Gail Kervatt for showing teachers that they can still make a big difference in the lives of all children.

In my search to find the answers to why my middle child acted so differently than my other children, and not receiving any answers, I began my own quest. I read books that explained temperments and it helped me understand my daughter. All of the books such as, "Raising your Spirited Child", "The Dificult Child", "The Strong Willed Child", "The Explosive Child" all had the same quality/traits that my daughter was exhibiting. However, it did not address her not speaking in certain situations. I believe all these books can be tied in with Selective Mutism / Communication Anxiety and other Childhood Anxieties. I don't know why my daughter has all these other symptoms such as low sensory, low frustration levels, etc., but after reading the forums at selectivemutism.org I have found that most of these children with SM have the same characteristics. Many have been misdiagnosed with ODD & Autism, among other things.
I just hope more research will be done to help those of us that are raising these special unique children.

My 5 year old daughter has Selective Mutism. I found other books more helpful and not as costly. I expected more from this book from reading other reviews. When I received the package, I got a stack of paper spiral bound. The first few pages had some useful information, but the same information was found on the web under Selective Mutism. Returned within a day of delivery.

I bought this book in hopes of getting a variety of strategies to use with a selective mute student on my caseload. I found this book very readable and engaging, but I didn't find enough strategies for it to be as useful as I'd hoped. It did give a nice overview of selective mutism and did a fabulous job of illustrating that it is not intentional misbehavior, but rather an unusual reaction to anxiety. Because of this, I find it very useful to share with parents and other professionals. However, I did not find the variety of strategies I was looking for.

My 5 year old son is in kindergarten and has selective mutism. I found that The Silence Within and The Supplement are excellent resources for parents and especially for schools. His teacher was so thankful to receive books that have great examples of useful research based strategies and even forms to use. No other books on selective mutism have tangible examples like these. The Silence Within demonstrates the "fading in" strategy on a daily basis, illustrating many very useful ideas and materials for implementing a school plan in a nonthreatening game-like setting. Kudos to Mrs. Kervatt. You've put together two books that are really useful to the school!

This publication has the answers for parents and teachers of young children who exhibit what is thought to be only extreme shyness. The teacher/author identifies this common but rarely identified social anxiety disorder, and outlines specific techniques than can be used in the home and classroom setting. My six-year old grandson has been selectively mute since age two. When interacting with adults, other than his immediate family, he becomes stiff, squeezes his eyes shut and becomes mute. I used this term to describe this behavior before I became of aware of this disorder. Ms. Kervatt's recounting of her experience with a young student is the story of my grandson too. I have shared this information with his parents, who are relieved to know that help is available for him. The information in this book should be provided to teachers, counselors and school psychologists nationwide. Recognition and resolution of this disorder is essential in order to help these children whose 'silence within' is preventing these otherwise normal, capable and healthy children from fully realizing their potential, now and as they grow into their adult lives.

http://selective-mutism.com/purchase.html

the book plus the supplement guide for less then the cost here.
hope this doesn't get deleted :)

This book is really a "must have" for anyone who is looking for information on Selective Mutism. I purchased this book and read it from cover to cover the day I received it. I also shared it with the Principal & teachers at my child's school. They had never heard of Selective Mutism. After reading it, they understood. We applied the program Gail used in this book to help my child to overcome Selective Mutism. It is an easy read with laymans terms; not medical terms.
Best book I have purchased & read in a long time!!