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From: Robin Lickley
Date: 04 May 2010
Time: 15:56:51 -0500
Remote Name: 92.25.120.8
Thanks very much for your comments and questions, Kelly. I've copied parts of them into the response, in order to make things clearer. (1) "Do you believe that each of these signs and symptoms are related to cluttering or are they related to something else?" I don't believe anything until I see sufficient evidence. This is why I think we need to get a decent amount of data together and analyse it and come up with a clearer definition (or two, or more, since we may currently be using the term to label different disorders). (2) "Perhaps they appear to be cluttering but are really another disorder." Unless we have a clear definition of cluttering and can establish that it is in fact a clearly diagnosable disorder, then it is hard to say anything appears to be cluttering. It is very possible that many of the symptoms cited by so many different people are in fact symptoms of identifiable disorders of which, say, tachylalia (or, say, messy, error prone speech) is a symptom. (3) "What would you suggest professionals do in order to decide what signs and symptoms are related to cluttering and what are related to something else?" My personal view would be that unless there is a clear definition of "cluttering" and a clear view of treatment for cluttering, it would be best for you to look at the individual symptoms and prioritise treatment according to what best serves the client's communicative needs, rather than attempting to assign a label ("cluttering") to the symptoms. I hope this makes sense! Robin