Great earthquake and tsunami hit north-east Japan in March 2011, and myriad of people forced to live in evacuation centers. Evacuees must have included children with selective mutism. How did they spend their daily time?
Selective
mutism is an anxiety disorder characterized by persistent failure to
speak in unfamiliar social settings and to unfamiliar people. Typically
they are children and can not utter words at schools although they speak
normally at their homes.
Evacuation centers were
unfamiliar settings for selectively mute children. A typical evacuation
center was set up at a gymnasium or a community center. In many cases
there were cubicles that separate living space. But such cubicles were
not necessarily placed. So, many selectively mute children must have
been surrounded with unfamiliar people.
Images of evacuation centers in Japan
(new window open)
On
the other hand, in many cases, children in evacuation centers lived
with their families without cubicles. I suppose they spent a lot of
their time close to their families. In other words, they were together
with their familiar people.
So, how did the environment affect the children? It is not clear, because nobody researches it.
I
suppose one
possibility is that they were mute all day long because they were
surrounded with unfamiliar people. If so, I feel a pang of
sympathy for them. Another possibility is that they spoke freely because
they were always with their families. A third possibility is the middle
of the first and second possibility. In other words, they spoke a
little.
I hope such complex environment helps children to desensitize unfamiliar social setting and people.
