Some Approaches to Therapy for Cluttering from the German Literature

by Britta Leimkühler

A student from Germany submitted the following references on cluttering from German literature and includes a brief summary of the information in several of them:

Katz-Bernstein, N. Poltern - Therapieeinsatz für Kinder. Vierteljahresschrift für Heilpädagogik und ihre Nachbargebiete, 55, 1986, 413-426.

Katz-Bernstein, N. Arbeit mit Eltern polternder Kinder. Der Sprachheilpädagoge, 20, 1988, 32-40.

Meixner, F. (1992). Poltern aus entwicklungsspychologischer Sicht. In Grohnfeldt, M. (Hrsg.), Störungen der Redefähigkeit (Handbuch der Sprachtherapie, Bd. 5, S. 468-490). Berlin: Spiess.

Rieder, K. & Rumler, A. (1990). Poltern. In Aschenbrenner, H. & Rieder, K. (Hrsg.) Sprachheilpädagogische Praxis (2. überarb. und erw. Aufl., S 129 ). Wien: Jugend und Volk.

Stang, H. Möglichkeiten der Behandlung polternder Kinder. Die Sprachheilarbeit, 29, 1984, 255-264.

Britta adds: Unfortunately these articles haven't been translated or at least I don't know about it. I hope it is still interesting to have the information from another country.

From all the articles I've read I like the one of Prof. Dr. Katz-Bernstein best. She is working as a professor at the university of Dortmund where I am studying and specialises working with children. I prefer her way of therapy because it is holistic and a mixture of speech therapy and psychotherapy. Speech training is imbedded into play situations. This is an advantage because the young patients always remain in a kind of natural environment. They are not forced form the beginning to slow down their speech rate. Also the parents are included.

Rieder and Rumler also favor a holistic way of therapie. Basic components are the speech therapy itself, psychotherapeutic aspects, musical and rhythmical aspects and miscellaneous aspects like dyslalia.

Meixner's approach focuses on putting things into an order. This ranges from words to movements. She thinks that the main cause for cluttering is the inability to put things into a series.

I haven't read Stang's approach yet.


added December 12, 2000