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Without A Voice

by Carol Pennamacoor
Exchange Feature Writer

               
     Betsy Pennamacoor sits at her desk, paying close attention to her third grade 

teacher.  Mr. Locke, standing beside the black board, is about five feet away from Betsy.  

He finishes his statement then directs a question toward the class.  A boy in the back of 

the room blurts out an answer, but no one raises their hand.  Mr. Locke looks slightly to 

his left and asks, "Betsy, do you know?"  With her arm resting on top of her notebook 

and fingers wrapped around her pencil, Betsy remains still, looking down at her paper.  

The entire room goes silent for about a minute.  Finally, Mr. Locke gives the class the 

answer, finishes his lesson and excuses the students for recess.

     While the twenty-four other students run out of the classroom, into the hallway 

and out the back doors of the building, Betsy walks slowly behind, observing those 

around her.  A girl runs past her, acknowledging her by saying hello as she continues to 

speed off.  No response is returned.

     At age nine, Betsy was diagnosed with a childhood anxiety disorder that 

affects less than one percent of the general population, called Selective Mutism, or SM.  

Normally discovered at a young age, selectively mute children demonstrate a persistent 

lack of speech in one or more social settings, notably in school, despite their ability to 

speak comfortably at home.

     Although Betsy's three older siblings also displayed shy tendencies, her 

parents realized that it would be more of a problem with their youngest child as Betsy 

stopped talking to those outside of the immediate family at eighteen months old.  

     In Pre-Kindergarten, teachers expressed concern that Betsy was anti-social 

since she refused to talk to the other kids in class.  After numerous parent-teacher 

meetings, it was determined that it would be best for Betsy to see a speech therapist.  

The teachers were worried that Betsy might have had a speech impediment and, 

therefore, may be too embarrassed to talk.  After years of meeting with a speech 

teacher, Betsy continued to attend school with nothing more than a cough or a sneeze 

coming from her mouth.

     Betsy's lack of social interaction with her peers continued throughout 

elementary school.  As the problem persisted, she became ostracized for it.

Her Kindergarten teacher would assign extra homework assignments each 

night; while the other children only had to color one picture, Betsy had to color three.

     "In music class, from kindergarten through second grade, my teacher 

would put me in the corner so I couldn't play anything w/ the other kids," Betsy 

said.  "Then, every time my sister Nicole knocked on the door to pick me up at the end 

of the day, the teacher would yank me out of the corner and throw me into the group."

     It was not until third grade when Betsy received the help necessary.  Mr. 

Locke expressed a desire to help Betsy overcome her mutism.  As a first step, he gave 

Betsy a dry erase board to use for the school year to answer questions in class.  As well, 

he agreed to meet with Betsy and her father, Bill, an hour before school every day.  

     At the first few meetings, Betsy would take a seat in a small orange chair at a 

desk next to her father.  While holding a book up high, she read to him in her regular 

voice.  Across the room, Mr. Locke would sit at his desk, hiding behind his newspaper, 

and listening in.  Betsy knew he was there, but pretended he wasn’t. 

     Since she seemed to be making some progress, Bill decided to sit down with 

Betsy one night to prepare her for the meeting the following morning.

"Now, Betsy, pretend I am Mr. Locke," he said.  "Demonstrate to me what you 

will do next time you see him." Betsy took a deep breathe, leaned toward her father's ear, and 

whispered, "Hi." Bill hugged her as Betsy looked her father in the eye and said, "I am scared."

     The next morning, Betsy sat in a chair to the right of her teacher.  She took a 

couple deep breaths in an effort to make the next step.  She leaned toward her teacher’s 

ear and opened her mouth several times, but no words came out.  She slouched back in 

her chair and looked over at her patient father and teacher as tears flowed down her 

cheeks.  The morning did not go as planned.

     After about a month, Betsy finally built up the courage and was soon 

whispering full sentences at a time.  Mr. Locke decided it was time to move forward, 

suggesting he have Betsy meet with some of the kids from class during lunch.

     "I went in every morning and then stayed with him at lunch," Betsy 

said.  "Then I began to have friends stay and he'd help me talk in front of them a little.  

It started with one friend and then each week, or few days, we'd invite another person so 

it started to grow."

     With the school year coming to an end, Mr. Locke came up with an idea for 

Betsy to try to speak up in front of the class. "At the end of the year, for the last week, 

we had planned these two questions," Betsy said.  "I was going to raise my index and 

middle finger if I was ready to answer, but I never could."

     Although the plan never worked out, Betsy was on track to move forward as a 

fourth grader.  All summer she paced herself by having her father invite friends over to 

her house, where she would speak to them in a whisper one-on-one.

     During that time, Betsy and her father also decided to do some research on 

SM when they came across a Message Board on America Online.

     "[I was at a point where] I was really upset by not being able to talk," Betsy 

said.  "I'd see all the kids [at school] and older people and they'd be talking non-stop, 

and I just looked at them and thought, 'I'll never be able to do that.'  I cried all the time 

because I couldn't talk and it was so frustrating!  I thought I'd never talk to anyone other 

than [my family].  I'd be an old woman buying something in the store and not being able 

to say a damn thing!  Then, Dad and I went on a message board and it was [about] all 

these people who had SM.  [Their] ages were all over the place.  People [who were] 

older than me, younger, Dad's age.  I remember one girl was 18.  [It was] then that I 

made myself think "I won't be like that; I'll be able to talk,' instead of ‘that'll be me one 

day.;;'"

     As the Fall approached, Bill met with Betsy’s new teacher, Mrs. Hunt, who 

promised to continue where Mr. Locke left off.  For the entire school year, Betsy worked 

one-on-one with a small group during lunch, where she would speak with, and get to 

know, her classmates.  She started out by meeting with one classmate she felt 

comfortable with and built up until she was comfortable enough speaking in a low voice in 

front of her entire class.

     "By the last few weeks I was whispering answers in [Mrs. Hunt's] ear, and I 

was finally able to whisper for the class to hear - or at least the kids around me," Betsy 

said.

     In fifth grade, she was speaking in front of her entire class despite the 

absence of her actual teacher for the first month.  However, she still spoke quietly and 

rarely, which led to a concern for her as she moved to a bigger school for sixth through 

eighth grade.

     Although Betsy's grades were high, she was placed in classes for slower kids 

in Middle School as she remained shy around groups.  Instead of allowing herself to get 

down about it, she chose to take advantage of the situation.  She was placed in classes 

with smaller groups of children, where she succeeded; she participated, made new 

friends, and received the highest grades among her classmates.

     Currently sixteen years old and attending tenth grade at Saratoga Springs 

High School in New York, Betsy and her family consider her Selective Mutism to be a 

thing of the past.  

     "She's talking a lot more to people than she used to," said Betsy’s older 

brother, Chris.  "We used to go out and she would never even order anything for herself 

in a restaurant or even say thank you when somebody would give her something.  Now 

she just seems more willing to talk."

     In school, Betsy has continued to obtain high marks in her classes and will be 

moving into an upper science division in her Junior year of high school next year.

Although she is still considered to be one of the more quiet girls in her high 

school, Betsy interacts with her friends on a daily basis inside and outside of school.

     "Not only [does she talk now] but she speaks her mind," said Julia Vanyo, 

Betsy's friend since first grade.  "Before, she would write it on paper and, sometimes, 

there'd be a misunderstanding.  I think [she's also] more confident now with socializing 

and she feels comfortable in saying what she feels."