Cluttering
| Cluttering | |
|---|---|
| Specialty | Psychiatry  |
Cluttering (also called tachyphemia) is a communicative disorder characterized by speech that is difficult for listeners to understand due to rapid speaking rate, erratic rhythm, poor syntax or grammar, and words or groups of words unrelated to the sentence. The person with cluttering may experience a short attention span, poor concentration, poorly organized thinking, inability to listen, and a lack of awareness that one's speech is unintelligible.
Cluttering is sometimes confused with stuttering. Both communication disorders break the normal flow of speech. However, while stuttering is a speech disorder, cluttering is a language disorder. In other words, a stutterer has a coherent pattern of thoughts, but can't say it; in contrast, a clutterer has no problem putting thoughts into words, but those thoughts become disorganized during speaking.
Stutterers are usually dysfluent on initial sounds, when beginning to speak, and become more fluent towards the ends of utterances. In contrast, clutterers are most clear at the start of utterances, but their speaking rate increases and intelligibility decreases towards the end of utterances.
Stuttering is characterized by struggle behavior, such as overtense speech production muscles. Cluttering, in contrast, is effortless.
To compare, a stutterer trying to say "I want to go to the store," might sound like "I wa-wa-want to g-g-go to the sssssssssstore." In contrast, a clutterer might say, "I want to go to the st...uh...place where you buy...market st-st-store."
Cluttering is also characterized by slurred speech, especially dropped or distorted /r/ and /l/ sounds; and monotone speech that starts loud and trails off into a murmur.
Clutterers often also have reading and writing disorders, especially sprawling, disorderly handwriting, which poorly integrate ideas and space.
A clutterer described the feeling associated with a clutter as:
It feels like 1) about twenty thoughts explode on my mind all at once, and I need to express them all, 2) that when I'm trying to make a point, that I just remembered something that I was supposed to say, so the person can understand, and I need to interrupt myself to say something that I should have said before, and 3) that I need to constantly revise the sentences that I'm working on, to get it out right. [1]
Another clutterer wrote on an Internet support group:
I just seem to rush through the words, and often slur words together and/or mumble—and as a result I often have to slow down, concentrate, and repeat myself.
Cluttering versus Stuttering
Cluttering and stuttering sound very similar to the lay ear, especially when they are at their worst. However, they are extremely different disorders and clutterers and stutterers are very different.
Stutterers:
- Are very aware of their disorder
- Perform worse when speaking under stress
- Have a hard time fluently giving short answers
- Have inhibited, neat handwriting
- Are fearful of their own speech
- Therapy focuses on relaxation techniques, calling attention away from speech
- Are typically withdrawn, shy, or introverted
- Typically were fluent, but then started stuttering
- Know exactly what they want to say but cannot say it
- Have organized speech
- Have good listening skills
Clutterers:
- Are very unaware of their disorder
- Perform better when speaking under stress
- Have a hard time fluently giving long answers
- Have hasty, repetitious, uninhibited, messy handwriting
- Have little to no fear of their speech and are careless in speech
- Therapy focuses on calling attention to speech details
- Are typically outgoing or extroverted
- Typically were never very fluent
- Do not know exactly what they want to say, but say it anyway
- Have disorganized, tangential, grammatically incorrect speech with word substitutions
- Are impatient listeners, frequently interrupt, and have poor turn-taking skills in conversation
Treatment
Because clutterers have poor awareness of their disorder, they may be indifferent or even hostile to speech-language pathologists. Treatment for cluttering usually takes longer than stuttering treatment. Delayed auditory feedback (DAF) is usually used to produce a more deliberate, exaggerated oral-motor response pattern. Other treatment components include improving narrative structure with story-telling picture books, turn-taking practice, pausing practice, and language therapy.
History
Battaros was a legendary Libyan king who spoke quickly and in a disorderly fashion. Others who spoke as he did were said to suffer from battarismus.[2] This is the earliest record of the speech disorder of cluttering.
In the 1960's, cluttering was called tachyphemia. Tachyphemia is derrived from "fast speech." This word is currently not used to describe cluttering because fast speech is a common, yet not a required element of cluttering.
Deso Weiss described cluttering as the outward manefestation of a "central language imbalance." In Weiss's book on cluttering, he used Central Language Imbalance or CLI as synonymous with what cluttering is described as today.
Over the past twenty years, Kenneth O. St. Louis, Lawrence J. Raphael, Florence L. Myers, and Klaas Bakker have been working to standardize a definition of cluttering. Judith Kuster maintains a robust section of cluttering resources and articles in her Stuttering Homepage[3].
The first conference to be held specifically on cluttering is scheduled for May of 2007[4].
Famous Clutterers
Weiss claimed that Battaros, Demosthenes, Pericles, Justinian, Bismarck, and Winston Churchill were clutterers. He says about these people, "Each of these contributors to world history viewed his world wholistically, and was not deflected by exaggerated attention to small details. Perhaps then, they excelled because of, rather than in spite of, their [cluttering]."
See also
References
- ^ Reyes-Alami, C. "Interview with a Person who Clutters". Retrieved 2006-01-01.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|creationdate=ignored (help) - ^ Weiss, Deso (1964). Cluttering. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. p. 1. LC 64-25326.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|middle=ignored (help) - ^ Judith Kuster. "Other related fluency disorders". Retrieved 2007-03-28.
- ^ "First World Conference on Cluttering". Retrieved 2007-03-28.
Sources
- St. Louis, K. O., Raphael, L. J., Myers, F. L., & Bakker, K. (2003, Nov. 18). Cluttering updated. The ASHA Leader, pp. 4-5, 20-22.
- Weiss, Deso A. Cluttering (Foundations of speech pathology series). Prentice-Hall (1964)
- Studies in Tachyphemia, An Investigation of Cluttering and General Language Disability. Speech Rehabilitation Institute. New York, 1963.
- Daly, D. A. (1996). The source for stuttering and cluttering. East Moline, IL: LinguiSystems.
- Myers, F. and K. St. Louis, (1992) Cluttering: A Clinical Perspective, Leicester, England: Far Communications