When you bring attention to somebody in an anxious state it is only natural for their anxiety to get worse. This is the same when it comes to selective mutism. If pressure to speak or communicate is placed on somebody with SM, their anxiety will get worse making it even harder to do the task that you're expecting. For instance, in the past I have had people say to me things like 'when you speak to me I'm going to be so happy!'. This was an issue for me. I completely understand how my ability to communicate with said person would have made our work easier, but in the long run it made overall communication take much longer to achieve. It took me over 2 years to utter one word to them and that was with intervention from the sliding in technique (as described in my last post) You see, when you expect people with SM to do something for you that they find impossible for everybody else, it puts more pressure on them. For me the case is that I want to please them, I want to communicate just like anybody else and I don't want people to have to wait for me to do that. When I'm already trying so hard to achieve flawless communication, and the additional expectancy to do so is placed upon me, I find that there is too much pressure and it just becomes impossible The same happens if I do manage to speak to somebody verbally and they instantly react. By that I mean when I suddenly speak to a person and they say something along the lines of 'wow! you just spoke to me, you must be comfortable'. That sets me back and usually my speech gets instantly quieter or again becomes impossible. I do see how it is a surprise and how difficult masking your excitement for this can be difficult. However, one thing I recommend is holding off on such reactions until the person with SM can speak to you just like anybody else. That way it eliminates any chance of increasing that pressure and causing the progress to slow down I think my main point is to act as natural as possible. Decrease the pressure as much as you can and try to keep calm. Some days progress will excel but others it might not be there. Patience is key