Child not speaking at school

[BiscoffSundae]

Any ideas why a child would speak normal at home, chatty, confident, loud but go to school and not speak at all? my son is 8 and year 3 since year 1 he has refused to speak at all in school, I’ve tried to address it with the school a few times but they aren’t interested and just seem to think he’s shy, but at home that is far from the truth, he has no friends at all as he refuses to speak to anyone. Anyone ever experienced the same thing?

www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/selective-mutism

Selective Mutism/ Situational Mutism. In my area Psychology would be first involved with these children. Maybe ask GP for a referral?

Mine didn't speak at school until he was about 12 and even now (16) doesn't say much! I was told not to push it at all and just let him get on with it, during junior school he was one of three in his year who was selective mute so us parents formed a unofficial support group! All three grew out of it eventually so don't panic about it now.

Also, the GP said that if ds talked at home and there were no other behavioural/mental health worries that a referral probably wasn't needed. Ds wasn't too fussed about it, he couldn't explain why he couldn't talk at school and we didn't push it too much. I'll always remember his form tutor calling us when he was 15 to say she had had to tell him to stop talking while she did the register and she was so proud of him 😁

It's generally trauma based or anxiety. I'd assume you'd hear about something which caused a huge trauma so it's more likely to be anxiety. Speech and language could help you more. My dd is pretty similar although has made friends. She was diagnosed as a reluctant talker as she spoke to the speech and language therapist. Still won't speak much at school but they're pretty good about it and have adapted things for her. She will speak when spoken to directly in a non confrontational way. It's anxiety based for her. We're working on that in other ways.

I would push for a referral to speech therapy and a meeting with the SENDCO at school. My daughter is 20 now and doing well at uni but all thru school she never spoke. This affected her deeply as she never had any friends and was bullied by others. It's better if you can address it whilst they're in primary school but it sounds like Selective Mutism. SMIRA is an excellent source of further info.

I'm pleased to say tho now my daughters at uni she's doing great, has friends and lives in a house share and although she's still on the quiet side she's really come on a lot.

I know about selective mute but I was told as he has no sen he wouldn’t get any diagnosis of selective mute on its own, school said he has no sen.

My daughter was selective mute between ages 3-5. It's not necessarily trauma-bases. My DD is naturally quiet and withdrawn and gradually stopped talking at nursery. I have also taught several children with selective mutism. The most important thing is to put no pressure on the child to speak. There is a good programme called sliding in but would need an adult at school to run it.

Most children will start speaking given time and no pressure. My DD gradually started talking again. She's at secondary school now and still quiet but speaks enough.

I would push the school to be honest. Just because selective mutism isn't a learning need necessarily does not mean it should not be acknowledged and some reasonable measures put in place to support your DC.

Who told you that he needed additional sen for a diagnosis?
Selective mutism is a diagnosis in itself and has an established treatment protocol. A referral to the NHS speech and language service would be appropriate.

Selective mutism will often be categorised as a speech and language need. You can absolutely get a SEND diagnosis and there should be outside involvement by now. The school need their staff to go on some training.

I taught a very bright child who was selectively mute. They had an EHCP specifically for that.

whilst it can be linked to trauma, the NHS states;

There's no evidence to suggest that children with selective mutism are more likely to have experienced abuse, neglect or trauma than any other child

id push for school to make referrals and contact the GP yourself too.

You can normally self refer to SaLT but I would have expected school to have suggested it already.

He has not experienced any trauma at all. Senco said it wouldn’t be diagnosed if he has no other sen. Would speech and language be able to help? as he can speak fine at home doesn’t struggle with speech and very loud and chatty.

He’s not talking at school is affecting his ability to make friends and keep friends it needs dealing with now what is a primary School there are many strategies the school can use push them to do so if they don’t go higher

The school senco needs some training in selective mutism. I’m astounded that they think being unable to communicate with teachers and peers isn’t an additional need. It very sadly demonstrates what schools currently view as important.

Ex TA here who has worked with a number of children with SM. Ideally as SALT referral should be done, schools can run interventions without SALT guidance as the material is out there, but I know from experience that schools can be really lazy about it as it doesn’t ‘cause problems’ and a lot of staff won’t know what to do. To be fair it is still rather unusual but not so rare as to be unheard of. I second SMIRA as a really good source of information and support.

senco is

… don’t know why it cut my message off. It said ‘the senco is clearly lacking knowledge’. Additionally the school don’t ‘need’ a diagnosis to put support in place.

just to give you an idea of what my intervention looked like - it was very slow, staggered progress from reading aloud (pupil was fine reading out from a book) to get her used to using her voice with me, then playing games with opportunities for spontaneous speech but also to practice turn taking etc., then games that required more language eg. Matching sentences, then it was supposed to lead on to more conversational topics (I left the school at this point). There is also ‘sliding in’ where pupils talk normally to someone they’re comfortable with (ie. You) and another person basically lurks outside the door 😂 (it’s more complicated than that) and then starts creeping in over a series of sessions.

This sort of thing is better sorted sooner rather than later. It likely started because a teacher told him not to speak during class - it might have been a simple order, or it could have been a scolding. Ask your son if he can remember the first time he was told not to speak at school.
Invite one of his friends over to play, so that the friend can see that your son can talk to you, hopefully he will start speaking to a friend outside school and then transition that into the school. Do a reward chart (screen time etc) with ticks for each day increasing, like the first day he just has to whisper “hi” to his friend. Second day “hi Sam” etc. let your son decide on what he can manage, what he wants to achieve.

That is false. But double points for getting a dig in and blaming teachers. A whole host of contributing factors are at play.