Niemówienie, milczenie, przemilczenie, pauza, czyli wielkie nic w teorii i praktyce logopedycznej

The article discusses the importance of the scientific description of mutism. The paper starts with linguistic arguments and talks about the phenomenon from the perspective of speech disorders typology and from the perspective of the mute person himself/herself. It suggests that the tempo of utterance (which is different from the tempo of speech) should be included in the study of mutism. It also discusses the competence of speech therapists to diagnose and program the therapy of mute people. The conclusion of the article is that the interdisciplinary research of mutism would allow for better understanding of this phenomena and a more effective therapy.