I'm a pure clutterer. I have no stuttering component. I have no other related or unrelated disorders. Cluttering describes me in every way. I introduce this presentation by demonstrating what my cluttered speech sounds like at its worst. (Requires QUICKTIME player).

Definitions:

• Cluttered speech: Synonymous with "normal disfluencies." These are the normal breakdowns that occur in everyday speech.
• Cluttering: 1. A speech disorder characterized by a high occurrence of the normal speech disfluencies of repetitions, revisions, and interjections, different from stuttering, and in a way that disrupts the normal flow of speech. 2. A personality set resulting in a high likelihood of disrupted speech.
• Disfluencies: Repetitions, revisions, and interjections associated with cluttering. Also used to describe any deviation from uninterrupted speech.
• Interjections: 1. Filler words, such as like, um, uh, ya know. 2. Occurs when a sentence is interrupted with another sentence. For example: "I want to go to the st....Did I tell you what my sister told me?"
• Mazing: When a clutterer will seemingly ramble on without a point, going from subject to subject, as if lost in a maze.
• Repetitions: 1. Word and phrase repetitions associated with cluttering. For example: "I...I...I want...I want to go to the store." 2. Sound repetitions associated with stuttering. For example: "I want to go to the s.ss.s.s.sstore"
• Revisions: When a phrase is started, and then revised before it is complete. For example: "I'm going for a ....to the store."
• SLP: Speech Language Pathologist

My story:

Like most clutterers, I didn't realize I had a problem with my speech, until it was pointed out to me. I was 26.

In college, the dean of my department pulled me into his office, and said, "Joseph, you're a really smart person, but I've noticed that you have a hard time expressing yourself. I've got a friend in the speech department, and if you're open to talking to him, I think this would pay off for you in your career."

At that point, it didn't occur to me that I might have a speech problem. I'd always wanted to be a good public speaker (probably as a subconscious need to deal with my speech problem), and so I went to the speech department, thinking I'd learn about how to be more confident in my speech.

After several days of testing, the speech-language pathologists said they were diagnosing me with cluttering. I was surprised because I had never heard of cluttering. She then played a sample of my speech they had recorded during the testing.

Now, most people don't like the sound of their voice, but imagine how horrified I was to not only hear my voice, but also to have it pointed out that I had an undeniable speech problem. I was shocked. I was shaken. I had never realized my speech was different and now I had proof, shoved in my face. I had a speech disorder.

What is cluttering?

"Cluttering" is an extension of normal speech disfluencies, meaning clutterers experience the same breakdowns and disfluencies as everyone else, but at a higher frequency. Most "normal" speech disruptions can be considered "cluttered speech."

An example of cluttering: "I...I...I.w...I..I..want..I want to go to the...I need...the store is over...to the store."

Because it is an extension of normal speech, more people can relate to cluttering than any other speech disorder. However, cluttering and the terminology associated with it are not yet widely used. I believe cluttering is the next ADD, in that people who don't have ADD can still relate to having an "ADD moment."

Examples of cluttered speech might include becoming distracted when giving a presentation, "losing your train of thought," or repeating words/phrases when a performer/speaker "forgets their lines."

Stuttering versus cluttering:

Cluttering is often compared to stuttering, and extreme cases of both can sound very similar.

An example that Dr. St. Louis gives of both is:

People who stutter often believe stuttering to be separate from their personality and identity. They have a personality that is obscured by their difficulties with speech, and want people to "look beyond the speech" and see the person.

With cluttering, it's different. I see cluttering as inseparable from my personality. I feel that I'm still cluttering even when my speech is perfectly fluent. My speech is an outward reflection of the cluttering that rages in my head. I see cluttering as a personality set with a high likelihood of resulting in disrupted speech.

Because of the differences in personality, I see no reason to shy away from the term "clutterer."

My history:

I started speaking at a normal age, but my speech has always been "different." My mom sought professional advice but didn't want to "make a big deal" about my speech, so she never brought it up. I'm glad she didn't, because I think early therapy would have made it worse for me. There was almost no information available on cluttering at that time, and I almost certainly would have been misdiagnosed and probably would have become very self conscious of my speech.

It's different now for parents with children who are clutterers. Cluttering is much more widely known and much more information is available. Most fluency books have sections on cluttering, and most speech pathologists are aware of cluttering.

My parents separated when I was about 10, and I think that impacted me. I've heard that divorce can trigger speech problems, and I think that it probably accelerated mine. When I was younger I was very loud and extroverted. As I grew up, I withdrew because of my problems expressing myself through speech. I come across as an introvert in a lot of ways, but inside I still feel like an extrovert.

I felt alone for much of my life. That all changed for me when I read Weiss's book. I realized for the first time that there are other people out there just like me. This realization has helped me connect with people in ways that I had never thought possible.

After learning about cluttering, I spent about two years in speech therapy. Speech therapy taught me many techniques (some worked better than others) and gave me a solid foundation for improving my speech.

About two years ago, I made a renewed effort to fix my speech, and I've learned much more about improving cluttered speech. The knowledge I've gained has changed my life. I know it can change the lives of others too.

I'm now 33. Most people would describe my speech as normal, but I've still got a ways to go to achieve my goal of perfect fluency.

Scale of cluttering:

In his book "The Source for Stuttering and Cluttering," David Daly talks about a "scale of cluttering," diagnosing cluttering when an individual scores above a certain number. This is an ingenious way of looking at cluttering, because it reinforces the idea that cluttering is an extension of the normal disfluencies of speech.

I'd like to extend that scale, showing that everyone can be placed on a scale of cluttered speech, where 1 is perfectly fluent speech and 100 is completely unintelligible, cluttered speech.

An accomplished public speaker, like Bill Clinton, might score 1-10. Those with normal speech might score in the range of 10 - 40. A score of 40 - 60 would be recognized as cluttered speech, but not necessarily diagnosable. Individuals scoring 60 or higher would be clinically diagnosed with cluttering.

This scale implies that the therapies used to improve extremely cluttered speech could be modified to help improve individuals who fall in the normal range of cluttered speech. It also implies that the techniques used by amazing public speakers can be modified and used as cluttering therapies. It is a revolutionary way of looking at cluttering as an extension of normal speech breakdowns.

SLP's and cluttering:

I believe that cluttering is as prevalent, if not more so than stuttering. This flies in the face of many expert opinions. I believe the statistics showing a small percentage of people in speech therapy are pure clutterers to be credible. However, I believe the percentage of people who stutter and receive therapy to be much higher than clutterers who receive therapy. I also believe many clutterers do not get the appropriate diagnosis of cluttering in therapy.

It has been my experience that while most speech therapists know about cluttering, and have read about cluttering, few therapists have treated a clutterer or extensively studied research dedicated to cluttering.

Cluttering is the undiscovered country of speech pathology. Weiss felt that stuttering grew out of cluttering. And, I believe cluttering is the missing link to many speech disorders.

Therapies that don't work

• Telling the clutterer to relax: Cluttering sounds a lot like nervous speech, and so it seems natural to tell the clutterer to just relax. However, clutterers aren't generally nervous when they speak. Their speech merely follows the same patterns as nervous speech.
• Fixing the problem without therapy: The lure of just telling someone to "improve your speech" can be very great. However, this is very dangerous because you risk completely turning off the clutterer from ever improving.

• Slowing speech down: This has been heralded as the miracle cure for cluttering. However, for me, it seems a lot like taking an aspirin when your hand has just been cut off. It relieves the pain, but it doesn't fix the problem. Having said that, I think all clutterers should learn to talk slowly. But, once learned, clutterers should move quickly to other therapy techniques.
• Focus on your speech: Cluttering is different than stuttering in that focus on speech will result in speech temporarily improving. If you ask a person who stutters to focus on their speech, their speech will often get worse. So, for clutterers, a logical therapy might be to focus on their speech all of the time. For people like me, who are initially unaware of the problem, this is easier said than done.
• Fix the other speech problems first: This is common advice to speech language pathologists, and I believe that it comes only from a lack of available knowledge about how to work with cluttering clients.

• Self monitoring: This means different things to different people. To me, this means listening to my disfluencies as I speak. I'm not doing anything to correct my disfluencies. I'm just listening to what comes out of my mouth as I speak, and noticing the disfluencies.
• Having a single point: This is frequently used in public speaking, and basically means that everything you say is focused on one and only one main idea.
• Thirty second speeches: In regular conversation, most talking is encapsulated into 30 second blurbs about one topic. After 30 seconds, another person in the conversation gives their blurb, and so on and so forth, around the room. Learning to give a 30 second blurb about one topic is an excellent therapy that is very useful.
• Thinking about the listener as you speak: This might seem like simple advice, but it is something that is very hard for a clutterer to do, and yields huge benefits to improving cluttered speech.
• Infuse an underlying music to speech: Clutterers speak in a modified monotone. For me, it is very hard for me to vary loudness, pitch, or other characteristics of my speech. Working on infusing an underlying music into my speech has been extremely helpful to me, and has been more achievable than directly working on other attributes such as loudness and pitch.
• Identifying mazes in speech: Mazing is the most identifiable cluttering behavior. For me, this is the only cluttering behavior I've been able to pinpoint when I'm doing it. Like I said earlier, I'm cluttering all of the time, so identifying mazes helps me not only in my speech but in thought patterns as well. I can notice my disfluencies as I speak, but I haven't yet been able to identify anything that makes them worse or better.
• Parents improving their speech as a model for their children: Every parent that I've suggested this to has said, "but it's my child with the problem." I'm convinced that the only way to get a child excited about improving their speech is for a parent to be excited about improving their speech. This is an extremely positive therapy that can foster an atmosphere of togetherness and excitement in a family.

• Kenneth St. Louis and Florence Myers--For holding the torch for the last fifteen years.
• Deso Weiss--For writing the book that changed my life
• David Daly--For a story that inspired me and for a scale
• Future cluttering researchers--for helping the thousands of people out there who clutter

"Cluttering," St. Louis, K. O. (1996) http://www.stutteringhelp.org/Speech-Language%20Pathologists/Cluttering/82.aspx

Daly, D. A. (1996). The Source for Stuttering and Cluttering. East Moline, IL: LinguiSystems. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0760601089/

Grant-Williams (2002). Voice Power. American Management Association. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0814471056/

Myers, F. L. & St. Louis, K. O. (1992). Cluttering: A clinical perspective. Kibworth, Great Britain: Far Communications. (Reissued in 1996 by Singular Press, San Diego, California.) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1565935438/

Weiss, D. (1964). Cluttering. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0006BMD0I/

Yahoo Cluttering Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cluttering

You can post Questions/comments about the above paper to the author before October 22, 2005.