Selective Mutism

Selective mutism is a form of disfluency which is situationally specific. The sufferer will have no problems with speaking bar in certain situation. As such it has been identified with Social Anxiety Disorder. Comparable to Sheehan's iceberg theory, persons subject to the condition experience a severe form of anxiety, fear, shyness and embarrassment in certain situtaions which make the enunciation of speech impossible. It is somewhat comparable to a massive unsurmountable block. In distinction to stuttering, the suffererer will generally not attempt to try and speak at all in the circumstances where the condition activates. In other situations, they will speak with normal fluency.