Selective mutism (SM) is an anxiety disorder in which a person who is normally capable of speech does not speak in specific situations or to specific people. Selective mutism usually co-exists with shyness or social anxiety. Children with selective mutism stay silent even when the consequences of their silence include shame, social ostracism or ev...
Selective mutism: An inability to speak in certain situations. See also apraxia, autism, mutism.
selective mutism (SM) Seemingly incongruous behavior in which someone exhibits a ready flow of speech in private, but silence in public. More silence-content words at these links: silen- and tacit-.
a social anxiety disorder/phobia. The child does not speak in certain situations e.g. school, but can speak in others, e.g. home.
the inability to speak in specific social situations in a child or adolescent who can and does speak in other situations.