My son will be 19 soon. We found that the "selective mutism" is anxiety related. He does not want to get older and have to go through the changes that occur as he becomes an adult. He was taking zoloft 100 mg and we got the physician to agree to increase the dosage to 200mg. Also, I edited a video of him over the years talking. He enjoyed watching it and he was allowed to view it at school at the beginning of the day. Within a few days, he started talking to us again. It had been over six months since he spoke. He still stimms a lot, but he is verbal again. The key was finding a way to address the anxiety and draw him out with the video self modeling. Hope you find this helpful.

We had that same problem, it was so frustrating, my son at 3 years old started talking about himself in the 3rd person, and at 4 years old he stop talking, he would only talk when it was absolutetly necessary. I would drive him 45 minutes each way to speech therapy and I would talk & talk and he would not answer me, it drove me nuts. So we started to talk to him about his favorite subjects, like the planets: I would say "David, what planet has a pink sky?" and he would answer and his face would light up and then I would ask him one or two questions on the same topic before I ask him something personal like "did you like your dinner?, and it worked for us. I also fund a great speech therapiest, my son can't work with someone who's mellow, so we fund someone energetic & with authority to help with pragmatic language. I should say he didn't talk for maybe 5 or 6 months, he had good days and bad days, and he also stopped singing, the 1st time I heard him sing again I cried! Now he is fine, now on bad days he tells me "I'm only going to talk about math" or an specific subject, but I tell him we can talk about that but we also have to talk about things I like or things I need to know. I should also tell you his bad days went from every day to twice a week and now it's a morning or an afternoon once a week or two weeks. He still repeats some phases he read or heard, but now we tell him "oh, I think you already said that, what else can you tell me about it?" and if he has trouble coming up with something start the new sentence for him; like if he says the "the ball is red" we would say "and what can you do with it? Or " how big is it?" "who can play with it?" just give him that push to get unstuck. Also create situations to make him talk, like having him remind you of things to do, like taking him to the mall, or buying his favorite cereal. I also heard that for teens on the spectrum playing games that allow you to play with other players online (not typing but speaking) helps them to break out of their shell and they become more social. I would also try to find out if something is upsetting him, or maybe something in his environment or routine change and that may be what's making him shut down, if that's the case explain him why things change.

my son is 9 with PPD/NOS. He will talk outside of school not inside classroom since he was 4. Just last two years he will talk to teacher but not classmates. we think it is anxiety driven or a control thing but have made some progress this school year. I have heard hormones or chemicals change in body around 18-20 for children on spectrum where there will be dramatic setbacks in some kids but progress can be made again.

Wow thanks for the quick reaction! And great to hear your son is doing better!

The selective mutism you are talking about was indeed something I came across aswell when googling about the problem.

In our case the mutism started with some unexpected side effects from a medicine against a rash. He overreacted to it and became quite depressed for a while, and remained insecure long after the medicine's effects must have been fading away.

We think this insecurity about himself is mostly the cause of the problem, and we tried to encourage him and convince him he could do everything he could before.

So more medicine might not be the ideal solution for us but the video is a great idea. We will definetly try it.

Thanks again!

Hey Dadman,

The situation you describe sounds exactly like the one my little brother is in right now. He used to be very chatty all the time, but recently he has stopped talking altogether. I was wondering how things are now, and if you did find a good solution, or a way to make progress.

Your response was very helpful aswell Dmom, and although my little brother is alot older than your son I can definetly relate to some things.

Has anyone else reading this got some tips on the subject?
would very much like to hear from you guys.