Examination of a social problem-solving intervention to treat selective mutism.
A tiny BST social-problem-solving routine gets selectively mute students talking in class and the gains stick.
01Research in Context
What this study did
O'Reilly et al. (2008) worked with two girls who never spoke in class.
The team taught a short social problem-solving routine.
They used modeling, practice, and praise in the regular classroom.
What they found
Both girls started answering teacher questions out loud.
The talking kept up three months later.
Skills spread to new teachers and new rooms.
How this fits with other research
Rasing et al. (1992) and Crosbie (1993) used the same BST steps with deaf children.
They also saw big, lasting gains in social talking.
Laughlin et al. (2019) flipped the script: they trained teachers, not students.
Yet the teacher BST package still lifted student participation in PE.
Together the papers show BST works for kids or staff, for mutism or motor skills.
Why it matters
You can copy this five-step package tomorrow.
Model the think-aloud, let the child rehearse, give instant praise, and fade prompts fast.
It takes minutes per day and needs no extra gear.
Try it with any student who freezes when called on.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The authors examined the use of a social problem-solving intervention to treat selective mutism with 2 sisters in an elementary school setting. Both girls were taught to answer teacher questions in front of their classroom peers during regular classroom instruction. Each girl received individualized instruction from a therapist and was taught to discriminate salient social cues, select an appropriate social response, perform the response, and evaluate her performance. The girls generalized the skills to their respective regular classrooms and maintained the skills for up to 3 months after the removal of the intervention. Experimental control was demonstrated using a multiple baseline design across participants. Limitations of this study and issues for future research are discussed.
Behavior modification, 2008 · doi:10.1177/0145445507309018