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From: Ken St. Louis
Date: 10/21/02
Time: 2:29:30 PM
Remote Name: 157.182.12.205
Dear Rene´,
Thanks for the comment on my reply. I apologize for the delay in responding.
You point out an important problem, i.e., the lack of a standard definition for cluttering. This, of course leads to all the problems you mention about cluttering being lost in the various descriptions of stuttering.
As you know, I have worked for a long time to come up with a definition that we all might "live with" long enough to decide just what group of speech disordered individuals we are talking about here. Although we have made some progress, unfortunately, even my colleagues and I do not completely agree on what cluttering "really" is. Our working definition is about the best we can do for now.
You asked whether we can come up with specific numeric and qualitative criteria for the diagnosis. David Daly and Michele Burnett tried to do so with his Checklist for Possible Cluttering. It is certainly a start, but the most recent version does not have clear cut-off scores for cluttering, cluttering associated with stuttering, and stuttering.
Our experience suggests that there probably are subgroups of people who clutter. How is that for clearing things up? <smile> I really don't think we know enough to specify specific numbers or types of disfluencies or specific rates of speech at this time. All I can say is that the cluttering disfluencies should not sound like stuttering and the the speech rate should sound fast or jerky (irregular).
Sorry, I wish I could be more specific.
Best regards,
Ken