Some children are mute and deaf due to a medical complication or something in their genetic make up. The most common form of communication for these people is sign language and reading lips. They may also use hand signals and motions to try and describe a word. These students might develop mentally at a slower pace then students that can speak and communicate the same way as the majority of the class. Many times children with autism are mute, so they experience a lot of the same things that mute children go through.

There are also students that are selectively mute. This is called selective mutism. These students are verbal and able to communicate when they are at home with their families. Although when they are at school it is a different story. They choose not to communicate at all. Sometimes it is due to fear of rejection or just not feeling like they fit in with other students. This type of mutism can go over looked for many years and be misdiagnosed as well. Sometimes it can be thought that the child is just shy. For the student to overcome this situation it needs to be handled at a young age and not over looked. It can be helped and shortened if teachers and family members are aware.

The game we played in class to give the students the feeling of being mute was a personal scavenger hunt, while being involved there was no talking for all the participants. They all had to find new ways to communicate the information. Here are the topics all the students tried to find out about one another.

Birthday, number of siblings, age, sports, shoe size, eye color, height, number of tattoos, favorite animal, coke or Pepsi, favorite ice-cream, favorite color, number of pets, number of piercings, dogs or cats.