We examined differences among 158 children, 44 with selective mutism (SM; M = 8.2 years, SD = 3.4 years), 65 with mixed anxiety (MA; M = 8.9 years, SD = 3.2 years), and 49 community controls (M = 7.7 years, SD = 2.6 years) on primary caregiver, teacher, and child reports of behavioral and socio-emotional functioning. Children with SM were rated lower than controls on a range of social skills, but the SM and MA groups did not significantly differ on many of the social skills and anxiety measures. However, children with SM were rated higher than children with MA and controls on social anxiety. Findings suggest that SM may be conceptualized as an anxiety disorder, with primary deficits in social functioning and social anxiety. This interpretation supports a more specific classification of SM as an anxiety disorder for future diagnostic manuals than is currently described in the literature. The present findings also have implications for clinical practice, whereby social skills training merits inclusion in intervention for children with anxiety disorders as well as children with SM.

BackgroundSome children with mental health (MH) problems have been found to receive ongoing care, either continuously or episodically. We sought to replicate patterns of MH service use over extended time periods, and test predictors of these patterns.MethodsLatent class analyses were applied to 4 years of visit data from five MH agencies and nearly 6000 children, 4- to 13-years-old at their first visit.ResultsFive patterns of service use were identified, replicating previous findings. Overall, 14% of cases had two or more episodes of care and 23% were involved for more than 2 years. Most children (53%) were seen for just a few visits within a few months. Two patterns represented cases with two or more episodes of care spanning multiple years. In the two remaining patterns, children tended to have just one episode of care, but the number of sessions and length of involvement varied. Using discriminant function analyses, we were able to predict with just over 50% accuracy children’s pattern of service use. Severe externalizing behaviors, high impairment, and high family burden predicted service use patterns with long durations of involvement and frequent visits.ConclusionsOptimal treatment approaches for children seen for repeated episodes of care or for care lasting multiple years need to be developed. Children with the highest level of need (severe pathology, impairment, and burden) are probably best served by providing high intensity services at the start of care.

Although joint attention processes are known to play an important role in adaptive social behavior in typical development, we know little about these processes in clinical child populations. We compared early school age children with selective mutism (SM; n = 19) versus mixed anxiety (MA; n = 18) and community controls (CC; n = 26) on joint attention measures coded from direct observations with their parent during an unstructured free play task and two structured tasks. As predicted, the SM dyads established significantly fewer episodes of joint attention through parental initiation acts than the MA and CC dyads during the structured tasks. Findings suggest that children with SM may withdraw from their parents during stressful situations, thus missing out on opportunities for learning other coping skills. We discuss the implications of the present findings for understanding the maintenance and treatment of SM.

We examined receptive language and academic abilities in children with selective mutism (SM; n 5 30; M age 5 8.8 years), anxiety disorders (n 5 46; M age 5 9.3 years), and community controls (n 5 27; M age 5 7.8 years). Receptive language and academic abilities were assessed using standardized tests completed in the laboratory. We found a significant group by sex interaction for receptive vocabulary scores such that within females, the SM and mixed anxiety groups had significantly lower receptive vocabulary scores than community controls. We also found that children with SM and children with anxiety disorders had significantly lower mathematics scores than community controls. Despite these differences in mathematics and receptive vocabulary performance, children with SM and children with anxiety disorders still performed at age-level norms, while more children in the community control group performed above age-level norms. Findings suggest that despite their speaking inhibition in the school setting, children with SM are still able to attain the receptive vocabulary and academic abilities that are expected at their age levels.