I like reading the literature about selective mutism. The other day, I bought a Japanese journal to read a paper on selective mutism. But it costs an arm and a leg. I live in poverty. :(
Some Japanese researchers publish case studies on hospital treatment for selective mutism.
A representative example is Mitsuhiro Tanzi's study (2002) "Long-term prognosis of children with elective muism who receive hospital treatment" in Bulletin of the Faculty of Social Welfare, Hanazono University, 10, 1-9. Tanzi reports 11 children with elective mutism who received hospital treatment from April 1982 to March 1988. Tanzi also presented the study to The Japanese Association of Educational Psychology. You can read the extract from http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110001887806/. The web site is provided by National Institute of Informatics (Japan).
Another recent study about hospital treatment I know was Shigemori Kyutoku et al. (1983)'s case report. Shigermori et al. reports a case that lasts mutism for seven years.
But they are rare cases. Most Japanese professionals don't use hospital treatment for selective mutism. Nonverbal treatment methods, for instance, play therapy and sandplay therapy, are popular. Behavioral therapy is also popular but is not frequently introduced as Europe and America.
Index of SM in Japan
