Behavioral Analysis of Interactions Between Teachers and Children with Selective Mutism

The present study focused on the interactions between a child with selective mutism and that child\u27s teachers. The hypothesis was that the teachers unknowingly maintained the mutism by not placing the expectations of speech on the child. Therefore, by training three out of the four teachers how to interact with the child with selective mutism, and using the fourth teacher as a control, the researchers were able to identify that the training not only changed the three teachers\u27 behaviors, but also the child with selective mutism\u27s behaviors as well. Also, based on a pre-training/post-training test, the teachers had a much better understanding of the disorder after the training was implemented. The control\u27s behaviors did not change during the course of study