Gourt Home::Gourt :: Cluttering
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 his or her speech is unintelligible.
Cluttering is sometimes confused with stuttering. Both communication disorders break the normal flow of speech. However, stuttering is a speech disorder, when cluttering is language disorder. In other words, a stutterer knows what he or she wants to say, but can't say it; in contrast, a clutterer can say what he or she is thinking, but his or her thinking becomes 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:
Another clutterer wrote on an Internet support group:
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.
See also
References
- Reyes-Alami, C. "Interview with a Person who Clutters." 3 March 2004. Accessed on 1 January 2006.
External links
- Cluttering: Some Guidelines
- Overview of Cluttering
- Interview with a Person who Clutters
- Cluttering Yahoo! Group
__NOTOC__
"Cluttering"