Terri, Parent, April, 2002
I would highly recommend this book for anyone who needs to give their school more information about SM........Terri

Pat Mervine, Speech and Language Pathologist, www.speakingofspeech.com
Beyond being a very interesting story, THE SILENCE WITHIN will serve as a useful guidebook to help selectively mute children.

Beth, Parent
I now have accurate information to share with teachers. Thanks for keeping such accurate notes and writing the book.

Gwen, Parent
I bought your book several months ago myself. My daughter has FINALLY cracked the "silence".....she began talking spontaneously.

Betsy, Parent
Your book has helped open the teachers'eyes. Thank you for your patience and helpful ideas.

Book Description
The Silence Within describes a teacher's experience with a selectively mute child. Also described is the process that followed in the child overcoming the disorder, after five years of being mute in school and all social situations. The book grew out of research and daily notes over a seven month period. It includes quarterly goals, the child’s handwritten weekly goal, daily strategies and activities, resources, references and reproducibles. Order now....Don’t miss out on this valuable and informative resource for teachers, parents, speech and language therapists and guidance counselors.

From the Author
The Silence Within is different than any other publication available in that it is written for teachers, speech therapists, guidance counselors, and parents by a teacher, in a lesson plan format that is familiar to school personnel. I found in my school system that no one was willing to work with this child, due to lack of knowledge or strategies. School is the very place that the child fears the most and my feeling is that school is where an intervention should take place. The lesson plan format in my book is inviting for school personnel to use on a daily basis as an intervention. The strategies described are based on research and have been approved as a sound approach by several authorities on the subject including Matthew Selekman, a national speaker and author on child anxiety, and Dr. Reiner Bahr, author and practitioner. The strategies incorporate cognitive behavior mod, stimulus fading, and shaping. The goal in writing the book is to provide useful information and strategies to school personnel, parents and clinicians so that this debilitating condition may be overcome.

About the Author
Gail Kervatt is a recently retired school reading specialist. She holds a Master of Education Degree and New Jersey Reading Specialist certification. She has been a teacher for twenty-nine years and a member of the International Reading Association. She has had articles published internationally in The Reading Instruction Journal, mitSPRACHE, June 2002, an Austrian speech journal, and Communiphon,Autumn 2002, South African Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Excerpted from The Silence Within: A Teacher Parent Guide to Working with Selectively Mute and Shy Children by Gail Goetze Kervatt. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One History "There's a boy who doesn't talk." The classroom teacher made the statement in a casual manner. The statement, as was told to me, was quite disconcerting, as my job as an elementary school reading specialist is to test the children within the school at various times throughout the year in order to place them in instructional reading groups for the following year. The Anton Brenner Test had been administered in the kindergarten classroom to do some initial screening in October. The test identifies children who may have weaknesses in language development. How was it possible that Nicholas had not been noticed by the responsible administering staff? Why had there been no earlier notification of Nicholas' lack of speech? The Anton Brenner Test is a nonverbal test in which the children copy a series of dots and then a sentence. Next, they draw a man and then count pictures of objects. The entire group screening is written. Therefore, the children do not have to talk, and Nicholas scored quite high. He was not identified as needing any type of intervention.