Selective mutism in immigrant and multilingual children: a descriptive literature review
Kämäräinen, Minna; Naciri, Annika (2022)
2022
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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022121430003
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022121430003
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The purpose of this thesis was to find out what kind of researched knowledge there has been published about selective mutism (SM) in immigrant, multilingual or bilingual children. With this, we wanted offer early childhood education and care personnel information about this topic and how they could support the social development and special needs of these children.
With our work, we wanted to spread awareness and increase knowledge about selective mutism in immigrant children and aim to help early childhood educators to identify this disorder. Selective mutism is usually noticed in early childhood education, which highlights the importance of early childhood educators being able to understand the difference between selective mutism and speech disorders, and the typical trajectory of multilingual child’s language development.
With our research, our mission was to gain knowledge on the cause mechanism of selective mutism in immigrant children, and to learn why selective mutism is more common among immigrant/multilingual children compared to children of the main population. The theoretical framework in this thesis consists of the key concepts of the phenomena, the early childhood education system in Finland, special support in early childhood education according to The National core curriculum for ECEC 2022, language development in early childhood, and the special features of language development of a multilingual child. We also offer theory on how immigrant child’s language development can be supported in ECEC.
The research method in this thesis was a descriptive literature review. The aim was to answer the following research questions: what kind of research has been made about selective mutism in immigrant or multilingual children and what are the risk factors that dispose this child group to SM. The collected data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis.
The main findings consist of ways to assess and treat SM in immigrant/multilingual children and recommendations to personnel working with them, and knowledge on the special characteristics that can dispose immigrant/multilingual children to SM.
With our work, we wanted to spread awareness and increase knowledge about selective mutism in immigrant children and aim to help early childhood educators to identify this disorder. Selective mutism is usually noticed in early childhood education, which highlights the importance of early childhood educators being able to understand the difference between selective mutism and speech disorders, and the typical trajectory of multilingual child’s language development.
With our research, our mission was to gain knowledge on the cause mechanism of selective mutism in immigrant children, and to learn why selective mutism is more common among immigrant/multilingual children compared to children of the main population. The theoretical framework in this thesis consists of the key concepts of the phenomena, the early childhood education system in Finland, special support in early childhood education according to The National core curriculum for ECEC 2022, language development in early childhood, and the special features of language development of a multilingual child. We also offer theory on how immigrant child’s language development can be supported in ECEC.
The research method in this thesis was a descriptive literature review. The aim was to answer the following research questions: what kind of research has been made about selective mutism in immigrant or multilingual children and what are the risk factors that dispose this child group to SM. The collected data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis.
The main findings consist of ways to assess and treat SM in immigrant/multilingual children and recommendations to personnel working with them, and knowledge on the special characteristics that can dispose immigrant/multilingual children to SM.