Selective Mutism in Children
Manifestations, Diagnosis, Therapy
Nitza Katz-Bernstein, Terry Moston
Compact Basic Knowledge
Why does the girl not speak in kindergarten? Why does the
boy remain silent during school? Selectively mute children
have the ability to speak, but choose not to use it in un-familiar situations or in communication with certain
people. A conversation with these children is often not
possible at all or only via gestures or written messages.
Nitza Katz-Bernstein elaborates in her book the symp-toms of this dysfunction and explains the diagnostics and
different therapies. She takes into consideration thera-peutic elements from various disciplines such as speech
therapy, as well as different schools of child and adoles-cent psychotherapy.
