Situational Mutism AND speech delay?

[Seasonofthewitch83]

Does anyone know if its possible to have situational mutism AND speech delay? I have been told SM is only when they speak normally at home......

I can't see why they can't both be present. I suppose it depends what you mean by speech delay? My child obviously had sm from a young age but they also didn't speak in full sentences until about 3 and needed some help with with some sound production sounds until 6/7 ish. The sm wasn't diagnosed until they were in secondary school but I had actually raised it when they were in nursery but was laughed at

We have diagnosed speech delay - DD is 2.10 and only in the last 4/5 months has started with functional and some expressive language. She is on 2/3 word sentences now but doesn't ask questions yet.

She barely speaks outside the house - never has. She can go hours not talking. She doesn't talk at nursery. We can sometimes get a little burst of it e.g 'ready steady go!' in the park.

The therapist says situational mutism isnt applicable as children with SM speak developmentally normal at home.

We are on a waitlist for ASD diagnosis.

Interesting. DS used to not talk outside the home or to anyone other than me/DH at all whether at nursery or with family. He also had/has a speech delay and I think there's a clear link between that and his SM. He was basically spending half his time not speaking so how could he possibly improve as much as someone who was speaking all the time? He just didn't have as much practice. It's taken a while but he's gradually at the stage where he speaks more with other people and that's coincided with a great deal of improvement in his use of language

This is EXACTLY my worry. DD is in nursery M-F - how can spending all that time not speaking help? We have just had four days off and shes come on leaps and bounds just over those days....

Sadly giving up nursery isnt an option.

I had exactly the same worry, slightly tempered by the fact that although DS was silent at nursery, he absolutely loved it. While he's never, for example, join in the songs they sang, at night I'd hear him over the baby monitor singing nursery rhymes that he'd learnt there. I will admit that we weren't massively proactive about it, I was getting more and more worried and then it just sort of clicked for him one day. I think it was over Christmas where he had three weeks at home and never seemed to shut up and by the end of it, he'd got so used to talking that he was happy to do it at nursery.

Yes.

My youngest had various speech articulation problems, an atypical stammer and is situationally mute.

He's 11 now and mostly verbal but not always. He's very aware that speech is tricky for him and when he's anxious he just stops speaking.