I got to know selective mutism through the Internet in my early 20s. I was surprised to read diagnosis of DSM-IV first. My childhood odd behavior meets the criteria of selective mutism very well. Until then, I hadn't known why I couldn't speak in unfamiliar settings. I had thought that I was the only strange child in the world.
But I was not an exception. I've met a lot of former or current Japanese SM sufferers or their mothers who get to know selective mutism through the Internet many years after the children present symptoms of selective mutism first.
That suggests how selective mutism is not known also in Japan. When teachers finds selectively mute children in elementary school, they don't always realize the children suffer selective mutism. So, they don't always tell the children or their parents about selective mutism. Parents, and of course, their children also don't know selective mutism. After many years, they happen to get to know selective mutism through the Internet.
Index of SM in Japan
