DS is 4, his speech and understanding is good but his confidence in speaking is his difficulty.
He talks with us at home, with grandparents. He talks at nursery, but I think less than home, but is starting to actively engage the adults there now (before he would just speak to the other children).
The main time he doesn't speak is when we see his friends parents, such as on the walk to nursery, or on playdates. He won't talk to the children or the adults, they will say hello to him, or the children talk to me but he says nothing, may wave to them on a good day. He'll want to see them and runs to catch up with them but the speech isn't there. Never has been.
I don't know of I'm explaining it well! I think covid isn't helping as we've seen very few different adults in the last 6 months so he's not had the opportunity to practice.
I've always thought of it as shyness but it was mentioned to me recently about selective mutism. But would this be impacting more areas if it was SM?