Muteness
or mutism (from Latin mutus 'silent') is defined as an absence
of speech while conserving or maintaining the ability to hear
the speech of others. Mutism is typically understood as an inability
to speak on the part of a child or an adult due to an observed
lack of speech from the point of view of others who know them.
Such observers commonly include a mute person's family members,
caregivers, teachers, and health professionals like doctors or
speech and language pathologists. Muteness may not be a permanent
condition, depending upon etiology (cause). In general, someone
who is mute may be mute for one of several different reasons:
organic, psychological, developmental/neurological trauma. For
children, a lack of speech may be developmental, neurological,
psychological, or due to a physical disability or a communication
disorder. For adults who previously had speech and then became
unable to speak, loss of speech may be due to injury, disease,
termed aphasia, or surgery affecting areas of the brain needed
for speech. Loss of speech in adults may occur rarely for psychological
reasons.
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