For those who are just beginning the journey of understanding Selective Mutism, or someone who has been dealing with SM for years. I have written up a short review on the books that I have read and how I found them to be, what type of knowledge it required and what age group is it targeted towards. Each book title is linked to Amazon (this is where I got most of my books) so that you can go straight there and order the book if you please. I found (I live in Australia) it was cheaper to buy a few books and pay for postage than to buy some of these locally. Normally I believe in shopping locally but it didn't work out in this situation! Hope these reviews help you choose the resources that you want to add to your library. I will do my best to add to this list as often as possible.
This book is quite useful and has some great tips for the classroom, it explains Selective Mutism well. I would recommend this book for those who want a simple background and information. They include a program and plenty of ideas for any child and their parent to implement. What I found most useful was the information on how to set up the classroom to encourage your child to be able to participate. Tips such as sitting in small groups away from the teacher and so on were quite insightful. The only drawback I found as someone who has done a lot of research I found it quite simple, however this can also be an advantage!
Books based on Selective Mutism
This book is quite useful and has some great tips for the classroom, it explains Selective Mutism well. I would recommend this book for those who want a simple background and information. They include a program and plenty of ideas for any child and their parent to implement. What I found most useful was the information on how to set up the classroom to encourage your child to be able to participate. Tips such as sitting in small groups away from the teacher and so on were quite insightful. The only drawback I found as someone who has done a lot of research I found it quite simple, however this can also be an advantage!
Prior knowledge of SM needed: Little or basic knowledge required
Age Group of Child: most ages
This book by far is one of my favourites I enjoyed the different case studies, the information presented, the description of Selective Mutism was detailed and informative. I enjoyed the treatment strategies presented. This book's target audience is for School Based Professionals which would be extremely helpful for a Parent to give to say a teacher who is working with their child with SM. The most challenging chapter and most useful is what to do when your child regresses in their progress. We imagine that progress will be slow continual and forget that sometimes they will regress for no reason at all. This book covers this issue. What I do find challenging is the expectation for Teachers to be able to visit the homes of the children, I can see how useful this would be however I can also see that teachers are busy and have lives that they lead outside of the classroom so time constraints are an issue. This book I do thoroughly recommend for anyone working with Selective Mutism.
Prior knowledge of SM needed: Average to Advanced Knowledge Required
Age Group of Child: 4 and up
For most essential book on Selective Mutism this book far outranks all. It includes information on more than one strategy of assisting the child to talk and details a treatment plant to match it. On top of this she adds the theory of Selective Mutism Treatment and explains everything in a simple yet detailed manner. The most helpful idea is the concept of a communication load, when communicating it is important to think about the levels of communication and start from to low to high. The manual includes information for parents, teachers and professionals in working with children with SM a lot of the information can be directly applied for any children across all age groups. This books would suit most except I suppose those who are interested in basic information on Selective Mutism.
Prior knowledge of SM needed: Average to Advanced Knowledge
Age Group of Child: would suit all ages of SM children.
Other areas of interest
In the interest of broadening my perspective I began reading on books that are aimed at anxiety in child. This book I found to be very practical and had a lot of tools that I believe would be useful for a child to use. This book has a two fold approach it looks at both the parents and the children as part of the therapeutic process, it has a chapter that the parent reads and then a chapter and activity for the child to participate in. From what I know this book focuses on the Cognitive Behavioural Approach to therapy and this could be used with a Psychologist or another therapist as well. The only downfall for this book is that I believe it is only use-able for children from around 8 years of age and up. My four year old would not be able to comprehend the activities that are presented in this book. But I must say it is a great book to read and explains a lot of concepts and understanding behind anxiety.
Prior knowledge of SM needed: no prior knowledge
Age Group of Child: 8 years plus.
Another really good book is Can I Tell You About Selective Mutism? By Maggie Johnson and Alison Wintgens. It is really simple and nicely explains SM from a child with SM's point of view. We shared it with our family and our daughter's teacher.
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