Online Training Courses for
Parents, Teachers and Therapists
We offer a variety of superb online and live training courses for parents, therapists and teachers in order to train these three significant agents of change to understand SM and acquire skills and tools to help children and teens overcome SM.
Parents’ Online Video Course
This course teaches parents, teachers and key-workers or therapists to understand SM, and to implement hands-on tools to help your child. This pleasant, information -packed course is made up of 9 sessions, each of which is itself broken down into 5-9 videos, with a total of over 10 teaching hours, plus forms, case studies and bonus materials for only $300 $250.
9 session video course: HELP YOUR CHILD OVERCOME SELECTIVE MUTISM
This course is the result of 30 years of working with thousands of children, helping them to overcome SM. It is designed to help them take practical steps to speech, in their real-life surroundings – home, school, and anywhere else where they may have trouble talking. Wherever you are located, you can participate in this online course, with 9 comprehensive video modules each one of which is made up of 5-8 short videos and additional information
Psychologist Ruth Perednik has run municipal and private clinics treating SM over the last two decades, and has published and lectured worldwide on the subject. She developed an effective, empowering, and pleasant treatment plan that has helped thousands of children regain their voices. This plan is the core of this course, and it’s aimed at the significant adults in the child’s life – parents, teachers, and when thought necessary a key-worker. Our mission is to help as many children as possible overcome SM – to spread their wings and fly
Summary of the Parents’ online video course
The first 4 video sessions have a twofold aim – to put together an assessment portfolio of your child, so that you will be able to fine tune the treatment to his needs by session 5, and to understand what SM is, what are its causes and characteristics, and how it is best treated. Sessions 5-9 are practical interventions aimed at helping your child take steps toward speech
Where is SM best treated (home and school) parents; teachers and key-workers\therapists – all potential agents for change; overview of the course. Homework task: Fill in “Child speaking checklist – where and with whom the child speaks”. Bonus: Case study of five year old girl in kindergarten treated for SM
including social anxiety, avoidance behaviors, shyness, introversion, language issues, developmental delay. Homework task: child characteristics handout – to be filled in by parents
involving parents, teachers and/or key-worker; home and school-based sessions; expanding child’s comfort zone; teacher’s tasks; parents’ tasks; treatment for younger children and teens; whether to include a key-worker. Homework task: video your child at home, chart what has been tried so far. Bonus: useful apps for treatment
How to decide whether to have a key-worker or therapist; what is key-worker’s job description; what characteristics are required from key-worker; who could be a suitable KW. Homework task: fill in handout charting potential key-workers strengths and drawbacks.
How SM affects your family, how to talk to a child about SM, 9 PARENTS’ INTERVENTIONS, shopping for a school and therapist, language issues and bilingualism, transitions. Assignment: chart with potential parents’ interventions – mark what seems possible for you to do. Bonus: CBT worksheets for parents
(best when watched by teachers and parents together) What is SM, causes of SM, how it presents in school, understanding the child with SM, overview of process of treatment – how it involves the teacher, 7 TEACHERS’ INTERVENTIONS, building a teachers’ behavior shaping plan.
(to be watched by parents together with key-worker or therapist) what is SM; what causes SM; assessment; planning therapy basic principles; tools of behavioral therapy; stages of therapy – home, school; generalization. Bonus: list of games conducive to speech for interventions\therapy
(to be watched by parents and therapist or key-worker, if you have one) overview of therapy for teens; how anxious behavior is reinforced and extinguished; 10 CBT intervention techniques for SM; medication; building stepladder of goals. Handout: format of stepladder of goals. Bonus: case study of a teen with SM
(to be watched by the therapist – if you have one, and parents) guidelines for therapy without home sessions, intervention only in school, building an exposure step ladder. Handout: exposure step ladder template.
Watch the sessions at your convenience, when and where it suits you best.
Therapists’ Online Video Course
For therapists wishing to acquire a deep understanding of SM, this course is made up of 12 video sessions covering diagnosis, etiology, causes, clinical presentation, language issues, research, guidance for parents and teachers, and mainly, treatment, treatment, treatment – for younger children, teens and adults. It includes 4 treatment protocols and will give you an in-depth understanding of selective mutism and how to treat it. Only $450 for over 12 hours of teaching.
- 1. Introduction and diagnostic criteria for selective mutism. Evaluation of children with SM.
- 2. What causes selective mutism?
- 3. Shyness and anxiety. Related anxiety disorders. Comorbid disorders
- 4. THERAPY!!! Tenets of behavioral, cognitive-behavioral and dynamic therapy for SM
- 5. Systematic desensitization – building gradual steps toward speech
- 6. Therapy at home and school: Therapy Protocol #1
- 7. Working with the teacher – Teachers’ interventions
- 8. Working with the parents – Parents’ interventions
- 9. Treating teens and adults with SM #1 – CBT and ACT Tool: Therapy Protocol #2
- 10. Treating teens and adults with SM #2 – CBT and ACT Tools, Mindfulness
- 11. Therapeutic aims, follow up, more recording techniques. Working from the clinic in SM: Therapy Protocol #3
- 12. Selective Mutism Retreats And Summer Camps. Review Of Literature On SM
Live Therapists’ Online Course with Psychologist Ruth Perednik
For therapists who want to learn directly from the expert, this is a twice-yearly fascinating course, live on zoom with Psychologist Ruth Perednik, in which you can participate, ask questions and contribute your experience. It is made up of 12 X 1.5 hour long interactive sessions covering all that the online course above covers, with a dynamic international group of therapists specializing in selective mutism.
It covers the causes, clinical presentation, treatment and research, as described below. It is a stimulating experience for therapists to deepen their knowledge and gain rich therapeutic tools for treating selective mutism. For therapists who dream of specializing in this wonderful treatment niche – helping children and teens overcome selective mutism- this is your opportunity to learn from the experts!!
Lectures and workshops for parents, teachers, and therapists live/online tailored to your needs
2-day, 16-hour workshop for therapists: Understanding and Treating Selective Mutism. Therapists will acquire a deep understanding of SM and a range of treatment methods to specialize in SM.
- Definition of selective mutism (SM)
- Research of SM treatment – what is evidence based treatment?
- Etiology – Causes of SM
- Clinical picture of children and teens with SM
- Underlying anxiety conditions
- Language difficulties (including bilingualism) and other comorbid issues
- Three agents of change: Parents, teachers, and therapists.
- Interventions at home
- How a teacher can help
- Therapy – home and school, or clinic based.
- Reviewing a behavioral therapy protocol for SM
- Intensive interventions – treatment protocol
- Treating teens and adults with SM
- Cognitive behavioral protocol for treating teens with SM
- Research on anxiety disorders
- Causes and effects of anxiety in children
- An overview of social anxiety in children
- Nurturing a shy and anxious shy
- How parents can empower a shy child at home
- What teachers can do to embolden children at school
- Therapy for shy and anxious children and teens
- Putting theory into practice: participants will practice therapeutic techniques learned in the course.
- Fading in – Sliding in
- Building exposure schedules – stepladders of goals
- Working with teachers and parents
- Reviewing and postulating therapeutic aims
- Using technology and apps in therapy
- Therapeutic games making therapy fun
- Video clips showing therapy in practice
3-hour workshop for schools
Ensure that your school staff understands and is equipped to help students suffering from SM. It covers what selective mutism is, how it presents in schools, and hands-on tools and strategies that school staff can implement immediately to help the child/teen overcome SM. Staff can discuss children currently in their school, and plan school-based interventions. Contact us to schedule a school staff workshop!
- Etiology – Causes of SM
- Clinical picture of children and teens with SM
- Underlying anxiety conditions
- Language difficulties (including bilingualism) and other comorbid issues
- Three agents of change: Parents, teachers, and therapists.
- Interventions at school
- How a teacher can help
- Therapy – efficacy and practicality
- Resources in school for helping SM children
- Treating teens with SM
- Protocol for treating teens in school
- Nurturing a shy and anxious shy
- How parents can empower a shy child at home
- What teachers can do to embolden children at school
- Therapy for shy and anxious children and teens