There is a boy in my son’s 4th grade class who doesn’t talk. Ever. My son says he is reasonably bright and does all his written work. He plays basketball and tag on the playground, but he never talks to the other kids or to the teachers. Apparently his parents say he talks just fine at home. The boy seems to have an odd voice and my son says he heard that other kids teased the boy about his voice years ago, so he solved the problem by not speaking. When the kids recently had an oral presentation they allowed the boy to come into class over lunch and give his report to just the teacher, which he did.
My question is about how much accommodation this boy should get. He doesn’t answer questions in the classroom, can’t work well in a small group setting, and requires people to work around him. Should this be treated like a physical disability and accommodated for? Or should they be strict and say that if he can’t give an oral report like the other kids he’ll get an F on that assignment?
Is this just a shoot-the-shit hypothetical, or are you seriously looking for someone to argue that a nine-year-old who has been deliberately humiliated into voluntary silence and social isolation ought to be flunked until he performs identically to other children? Maybe he can be held back until his voice drops.
I don’t have any idea how you think this ought to be handled (or why you think it’s your business), but let’s spare a thought for what that kid and his parents must be going through.
I’d sincerely hope that the kid is getting counselling of some description, and that the counsellor is in communication with the teacher about the best way to solve the issue.
In the absence of instructions to the contrary from professionals involved in helping the kid, I would think that the best thing would be for the rest of the world to work around him for the moment, and treat it like no big deal. Because the bigger a deal it becomes, of course, the harder it will be for him to start talking again.
My post probably sounded a bit harsh. Sooner or later he’ll have to modify his behavior. Just treating him like everybody else probably isn’t the best idea, but exceptions will not be made his whole life, something has to give.
There’s really no point in giving him an F, as the most they’ll likely hold him back is one grade. It’s not like they could actually hold him forever until he talks. We don’t work that way anymore.
Ultimately I find that showdowns don’t work, anyways. The kid is obviously scared of being made fun of if he talks. You’re not going to overcome said fear by stressing him out more. You’ll just reinforce the fear.
I had a teacher who forced me to put my head underwater 20 times because I was scared of it. Not only did I not get over it, I intentionally avoided that teacher for the rest of the year. Since I didn’t volunteer for the impromptu therapy, I just perceived it as someone who was trying to hurt me.
I got over being scared of the teacher, but, to this day, I will not put my head under water. I can’t even hold still long enough to try to float.
Funny, I was just talking about this with my parents the other day. I went through a bout of selective mutism myself, pretty much like described in the OP. I would talk at home, but not at school. Went on for a year apparently before the teachers said anything to my parents (selective mutism, indeed!). The only difference was that I was much younger – a kindergartner, I guess.
But back then (early '70s), there was none of this mollycoddling that folk go in for nowadays. My parents brought me in for a conference with the teacher, and basically told me to knock it off. (Oh, and I got a bribe worth about a nickel.) So I did. The next day the teacher had me stand up before the class and say hello.
As my mother said the other day, she thought I was kind of sick of the mutism anyway. And it was true, I was. I just needed my parents’ leaning on me to give me a face-saving way to get out of it.
It’s a real syndrome, not a volutary ploy. I’ve read two stories (fiction based loosely on factual situations) in which kids had this owing to traumatic events: guilt over clincially depressed mother’s suicide in one case, reaction to ongoing sexual abuse by stepfather in the other. And it apparently takes ongoing therapy addressing the underlying cause and including peer-group encouragement to break it.
He probably really needs to hear the teacher say to the class that this sort of teasing will not be tolerated. He deserves to know that he will be protected, and that his input is missed. He’ll never be able to get over this until he sees some proof that his thoughts are valued and that the other kids would like to hear them.
I guess I’m just a prick. If he’s doing this voluntarily because of some schoolyard teasing, he should be graded as if he’s just choosing not to do the work, which is the case. If that means he fails an oral assignment, so be it. However, if there is some legitimate reason he can’t talk, or some childhood trauma makes him unable to talk, then he shouldn’t be required to.
Kids get teased for any number of things by other kids. If I could have gotten a pass from assigned work because the asshole who sat behind me made my life a living hell for the entirety of 3rd grade, including taking me forcefully into the bathroom one day during recess to “inspect” me against my will, I guess I would have taken it. But was I entitled to it? Hell no. Tough shit, life is hard. Kids are resilient.
Isn’t it possible that your 4th grade son doesn’t know the whole story behind why this kid doesn’t talk and why the school and teacher have decided to accommodate him? Did you get any of this information directly from the teacher or the school?
If the parents know the law, they can get a psychiatric diagnosis of elective mutism and have the boy obtain accomodations under provisions of the Section 504 law, which protects people with disabilities from discrimination.
Well so far that’s what he has received. He’s been in speech therapy for years and hasn’t received any flunking grades. The question is as to whether this is the right course of action.
