Parent Child Interaction Therapy adaptation for selective mutism (PCIT-SM)
Is your child not speaking? Are they talking at home but not in the school or public setting?
PCIT-SM can help with:
- increasing speaking behaviors.
- decreasing avoidance behaviors.
- generalizing speaking behaviors.
Parent Child Interaction Therapy adaptation for selective mutism is a treatment protocol used to decrease the cycle of speech avoidance and create a pathway to approach speaking. Borrowing tools and techniques from standard PCIT (to learn more about PCIT, click here https://www.pcit.org/), this adaptation also has two phases: 1) relationship building and 2) verbal shaping. The first phase is used to create connection, while simultaneously reducing anxiety. The second phase applies specifically formatted questions that produce and increase verbal behaviors. The live coaching model is also maintained in this adaptation, providing parents/caregiver real-time feedback of applied skills with their child. The parent and clinician work as a team to transfer verbal behaviors from parent to clinician and continue to work on generalizing verbal behaviors from the office setting into the areas where the child experiences mutism behaviors.
PCIT-SM is a research supported treatment approach developed by Steven Kurtz, Ph.D., ABPP. To learn more about the research supporting PCIT-SM, click here: https://www.kurtzpsychology.com/selective-mutism/research-pcit-sm/
