Selective+Mutism+and+VoiceThread

 Selective Mutism and VoiceThread Selective Mutism and Voice Thread

The past year, I had a little girl in my third grade class who didn’t speak. She would nod for yes or no, point; shrug her shoulders excreta to try to get her point across. First, I didn’t know what to do, then I found out of her diagnosis of selective mutism. Selective mutism is when a child has so much anxiety built up around a situation that they do not speak. In this case, my little student did not speak at school. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, she had so much pent up anxiety that she wouldn’t speak to her teachers or classmates.

With a student who is selectively mute it is very hard to build a relationship with teachers and friends, so in order to get her to express herself she would write, and a beautiful writer she was. In order to hear her voice, we incorporated VoiceThread into her Hebrew assignments. She would have to read and say her opinion at home and record it via VoiceThread for her classmates to hear. Low and behold, she was expressive, enthusiastic, and very well versed. This voice came from her house a comfortable home environment.

VoiceThread can have many benefits to students, it can give them the opportunity to practice their oral reading, it is a venue for others to share their stories and presentations with voice commentary. As educators, we may use voice thread in our classroom to foster group discussions and to share final products.

However this can be a barrier for someone who is selectively mute. Since they have anxiety around a specific area, for example school a student who has this anxiety may not be able to use this type of technology to express their thoughts or to share their final project.

In order to “break through this barrier” a suggestion could be to have the child work on this aspect of the project in a different environment. This may require flexibility from the teacher, however doing the project in a different environment where they feel most comfortable will help relieve the anxiety and create a positive result. Having a selectively mute child use voice thread can help their peers hear and recognize their voice, and make the child more comfortable.

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