Quote:
Originally Posted by Deej
wait wait wait...
they just shut down?
out of nowhere, they just dont talk for awhile?
Are there ancestors that were monks?
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nah, it starts extremely early and is often dismissed as shyness...
that's all we thought it was when he was younger.
It's an anxiety disorder similar to stagefright.
It was really tough early because there wasn't as much information as there is now. The signs are also sometimes taken as signs of abuse, so we had to do a lot of educating of teachers, school officials, CPS, etc.
At home, we was a normal, happy, kid who played with his friends and had fun. As soon as he stepped on a school bus, he didn't say a word until he got off the bus at the end of the day. He's 13 and still doesn't talk in school. We have developed workarounds like him reading into a tape recorder at home for reading lessons and sign language. It's heartbreaking to see this kid who is happy and energetic shut down in social situations..to the point where you can see he wants to talk but just can't.
Selectively mute children are also usually extremely observant. They might not talk, but they watch and listen to everything you say. We had to be very careful to be very precise talking to him as a child (he's better now that he's older) so he didn't think we were lying to him if we were just discussing something and he thought we were going to actually do it.
At a young age, we thought he was reading Green Eggs and Ham really really young, but it turns out, he had just memorized the book from us reading it to him.