Cluttering
Encyclopedia
Cluttering is a speech disorder
and a communication 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. Cluttering has in the past been viewed as a fluency
disorder.
, poor concentration, poorly organized thinking, inability to listen, and a lack of awareness that one's speech is unintelligible.
Spoonerism
s, malapropisms, Colemanballs
, and Freudian slips are examples of cluttering. Stuttering as a common term often refers to the speech disorder of cluttering, rather than to the speech disorder of stuttering. Cluttered speech
is exhibited by normal speakers, and is often referred to as stuttering—this is especially true when the speaker is nervous, where nervous speech more closely resembles cluttering than stuttering.
Cluttering is sometimes confused with stuttering
. Both communication disorders break the normal flow of speech. However, while stuttering is most often analyzed as 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. Cluttering not only affects speech, but affects thought patterns, writing, typing, and conversation.
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.
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:
Another wrote:
Another clutterer wrote on an Internet support group:
, language disorder
, learning disabilities, and attention deficit disorder. People with ADD
or ADHD may have many of the same symptoms as clutterers, including being inattentive, restless, short tempered, and impatient.
(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 book
s, turn-taking practice, pausing practice, and language therapy.
n king who spoke quickly and in a disorderly fashion. Others who spoke as he did were said to suffer from battarismus. This is the earliest record of the speech disorder of cluttering.
In the 1960s, cluttering was called tachyphemia, a word derived from the Greek for "fast speech." This word is currently not used to describe cluttering because fast speech is not a required element of cluttering.
Deso Weiss described cluttering as the outward manifestation 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.
The first conference held specifically on cluttering was held in May 2007 in Razlog
, Bulgaria
. It was called, "The First World Conference on Cluttering," and had over 60 participants from across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. It was held in Bulgaria partly because of cluttering research efforts by Professors Dobrinka Georgieva and Katya Dionissieva of Neofit Rilski
. Part of the conference was awarding the first Deso Weiss Award for Excellence in Cluttering, which went to Kenneth St. Louis for his contributions for understanding and knowledge about cluttering.
, Pericles
, Justinian, Otto von Bismarck
, and Winston Churchill
were clutterers. He says about these people, "Each of these contributors to world history
viewed his world holistically, and was not deflected by exaggerated attention to small details. Perhaps then, they excelled because of, rather than in spite of, their
[cluttering]."
The animated character Porky Pig
, who has often been described as a stutterer, has a style of speech similar to cluttering in some ways.
Speech disorder
Speech disorders or speech impediments are a type of communication disorders where 'normal' speech is disrupted. This can mean stuttering, lisps, etc. Someone who is unable to speak due to a speech disorder is considered mute.-Classification:...
and a communication disorder
Communication disorder
A communication disorder is a speech and language disorder which refers to problems in communication and in related areas such as oral motor function. The delays and disorders can range from simple sound substitution to the inability to understand or use language...
characterized by speech that is difficult for listeners to understand due to rapid speaking rate, erratic rhythm, poor syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
or grammar, and words or groups of words unrelated to the sentence. Cluttering has in the past been viewed as a fluency
Fluency
Fluency is the property of a person or of a system that delivers information quickly and with expertise.-Speech:...
disorder.
Definitions
Cluttering has been in the process of being defined for the last forty years. A current definition of cluttering is:Cluttering is a fluency disorder characterized by a rate that is perceived to be abnormally rapid, irregular, or both for the speaker (although measured syllable rates may not exceed normal limits). These rate abnormalities further are manifest in one or more of the following symptoms: (a) an excessive number of disfluencies, the majority of which are not typical of people with stutteringStutteringStuttering , also known as stammering , is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases, and involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the stutterer is unable to produce sounds...
; (b) the frequent placement of pauses and use of prosodic patterns that do not conform to syntactic and semantic constraints; and (c) inappropriate (usually excessive) degrees of coarticulationCoarticulationCoarticulation in its general sense refers to a situation in which a conceptually isolated speech sound is influenced by, and becomes more like, a preceding or following speech sound...
among sounds, especially in multisyllabic words.
Presentation
Those with cluttering may experience a short attention spanAttention span
Attention span is the amount of time that a person can concentrate on a task without becoming distracted. Most educators and psychologists agree that the ability to focus one's attention on a task is crucial for the achievement of one's goals....
, poor concentration, poorly organized thinking, inability to listen, and a lack of awareness that one's speech is unintelligible.
Spoonerism
Spoonerism
A spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched . It is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner , Warden of New College, Oxford, who was notoriously prone to this tendency...
s, malapropisms, Colemanballs
Colemanballs
Colemanballs is a term coined by Private Eye magazine to describe verbal gaffes perpetrated by sports commentators. The word Colemanballs probably borrows from Colemans Meatballs, once familiar in the UK and sold by the company ColemanNatural...
, and Freudian slips are examples of cluttering. Stuttering as a common term often refers to the speech disorder of cluttering, rather than to the speech disorder of stuttering. Cluttered speech
Cluttered speech
Cluttered speech is a common term for speech that becomes broken down, cluttered, or unintelligible due to a variety of reasons. Cluttered speech is often described as hurried, nervous, broken down, stuttering, stammering, and cluttering...
is exhibited by normal speakers, and is often referred to as stuttering—this is especially true when the speaker is nervous, where nervous speech more closely resembles cluttering than stuttering.
Cluttering is sometimes confused with stuttering
Stuttering
Stuttering , also known as stammering , is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases, and involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the stutterer is unable to produce sounds...
. Both communication disorders break the normal flow of speech. However, while stuttering is most often analyzed as a speech disorder
Speech disorder
Speech disorders or speech impediments are a type of communication disorders where 'normal' speech is disrupted. This can mean stuttering, lisps, etc. Someone who is unable to speak due to a speech disorder is considered mute.-Classification:...
, 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. Cluttering not only affects speech, but affects thought patterns, writing, typing, and conversation.
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.
Cluttering is also characterized by slurred speech
Relaxed pronunciation
Relaxed pronunciation is a phenomenon that happens when the syllables of common words are slurred together...
, 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:
Another wrote:
Another clutterer wrote on an Internet support group:
Related disorders
Cluttering can often be confused with language delayLanguage delay
Language delay is a failure to develop language abilities on the usual developmental timetable. Language delay is distinct from speech delay, in which the speech mechanism itself is the focus of delay...
, language disorder
Language disorder
Language disorders or language impairments are disorders that involve the processing of linguistic information. Problems that may be experienced can involve grammar , semantics , or other aspects of language...
, learning disabilities, and attention deficit disorder. People with ADD
ADD
* A.D.D. , a song on System of a Down's album Steal This Album!* A.D.D. , the first studio album by Blake Lewis, the runner-up on the sixth season of American Idol...
or ADHD may have many of the same symptoms as clutterers, including being inattentive, restless, short tempered, and impatient.
Treatment
Because clutterers have poor awareness of their disorder, they may be indifferent or even hostile to speech-language pathologists. Delayed auditory feedbackDelayed Auditory Feedback
Delayed Auditory Feedback , is a device that enables a user of the device to speak into a microphone and then hear his or her voice in headphones a fraction of a second later...
(DAF) is usually used to produce a more deliberate, exaggerated oral-motor response pattern. Other treatment components include improving narrative structure
Narrative structure
Narrative structure is generally described as the structural framework that underlies the order and manner in which a narrative is presented to a reader, listener, or viewer....
with story-telling
Storytelling
Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...
picture book
Picture book
A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. The images in picture books use a range of media such as oil paints, acrylics, watercolor and pencil.Two of the earliest books with something like the format picture books still retain now...
s, turn-taking practice, pausing practice, and language therapy.
History
Battaros was a legendary LibyaLibya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
n king who spoke quickly and in a disorderly fashion. Others who spoke as he did were said to suffer from battarismus. This is the earliest record of the speech disorder of cluttering.
In the 1960s, cluttering was called tachyphemia, a word derived from the Greek for "fast speech." This word is currently not used to describe cluttering because fast speech is not a required element of cluttering.
Deso Weiss described cluttering as the outward manifestation 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
Judith Kuster
Judith Maginnis Kuster, aka Judith A. Kuster, is a certified speech-language pathologist and professor in the Department of Speech, Hearing and Rehabilitation Services at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She holds an MS in speech-language pathology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and...
maintains a robust section of cluttering resources and articles in her Stuttering Homepage.
The first conference held specifically on cluttering was held in May 2007 in Razlog
Razlog
Razlog is a town and ski resort in Razlog Municipality, Blagoevgrad Province in southwestern Bulgaria. It is situated in the Razlog Valley and was first mentioned during the reign of Byzantine emperor Basil II....
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
. It was called, "The First World Conference on Cluttering," and had over 60 participants from across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. It was held in Bulgaria partly because of cluttering research efforts by Professors Dobrinka Georgieva and Katya Dionissieva of Neofit Rilski
Neofit Rilski
Neofit Rilski or Neophyte of Rila , born Nikola Poppetrov Benin was a 19th-century Bulgarian monk, teacher and artist, and an important figure of the Bulgarian National Revival....
. Part of the conference was awarding the first Deso Weiss Award for Excellence in Cluttering, which went to Kenneth St. Louis for his contributions for understanding and knowledge about cluttering.
Cluttering researchers
Cluttering research is still in its infancy. Cluttering research peaked and faded away in the 1960s, but interest in cluttering research has drastically increased and there are numerous books on cluttering that are currently being written. Because of this renewed interest in cluttering, the current cluttering researchers are pioneers in this speech disorder. Most of the cluttering researchers were stuttering researchers who studied cluttering as a secondary behavior, however there are a few dedicated cluttering researchers. The most notable of the cluttering researchers are:- Deso Weiss
- David DalyDavid DalyDavid A. Daly is a fluency author, researcher, and center owner.-Life and work:Daly was a moderately severe stutterer who went to school for speech therapy...
- Charles Van RiperCharles Van RiperCharles Gage Van Riper was a renowned speech therapist who became internationally known as a pioneer in the development of speech pathology...
- Florence Myers
- Kenneth St. Louis
- Klaas Bakker
- Judith KusterJudith KusterJudith Maginnis Kuster, aka Judith A. Kuster, is a certified speech-language pathologist and professor in the Department of Speech, Hearing and Rehabilitation Services at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She holds an MS in speech-language pathology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and...
- Katerina de Hirsch
- Alf Preus
- Lawrence RaphaelLawrence RaphaelLawrence J. Raphael is a professor in the Communications Sciences and Disorders department at Adelphi University in New York City, New York. Recently, he has become known for his cluttering research, although he has a more extensive publication record in speech production and perception...
- Yvonne van Zaalen
Famous clutterers
Weiss claimed that Battaros, DemosthenesDemosthenes
Demosthenes was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by...
, Pericles
Pericles
Pericles was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city's Golden Age—specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars...
, Justinian, Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
, and Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
were clutterers. He says about these people, "Each of these contributors to world history
World History
World History, Global History or Transnational history is a field of historical study that emerged as a distinct academic field in the 1980s. It examines history from a global perspective...
viewed his world holistically, and was not deflected by exaggerated attention to small details. Perhaps then, they excelled because of, rather than in spite of, their
[cluttering]."
The animated character Porky Pig
Porky Pig
Porky Pig is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He was the first character created by the studio to draw audiences based on his star power, and the animators created many critically acclaimed shorts using the fat little pig...
, who has often been described as a stutterer, has a style of speech similar to cluttering in some ways.
See also
- StutteringStutteringStuttering , also known as stammering , is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases, and involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the stutterer is unable to produce sounds...
- Lisp
- DyslexiaDyslexiaDyslexia is a very broad term defining a learning disability that impairs a person's fluency or comprehension accuracy in being able to read, and which can manifest itself as a difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, or rapid...
- Speech processingSpeech processingSpeech processing is the study of speech signals and the processing methods of these signals.The signals are usually processed in a digital representation, so speech processing can be regarded as a special case of digital signal processing, applied to speech signal.It is also closely tied to...
- Voice disorders
- Attention deficit disorder
- ApraxiaApraxiaApraxia is a disorder caused by damage to specific areas of the cerebrum. Apraxia is characterized by loss of the ability to execute or carry out learned purposeful movements, despite having the desire and the physical ability to perform the movements...
- SpoonerismSpoonerismA spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched . It is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner , Warden of New College, Oxford, who was notoriously prone to this tendency...
- Auditory processing disorderAuditory processing disorderAuditory Processing Disorder , also known as Central Auditory Processing Disorder is an umbrella term for a variety of disorders that affect the way the brain processes auditory information. It is not a peripheral hearing disorder as individuals with APD usually have normal peripheral hearing...
- AutismAutismAutism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
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.
- 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