“Can’t you just slow down?”
Cluttering is a relatively unknown fluency disorder that can involve disorganized, rapid, jerky or unclear speaking. It is often not recognized as a stand-alone speech impediment and often mistaken for stuttering. One reason why many people with cluttering are not diagnosed until adulthood. There are, however, many differences between the two disorders.
Individuals with cluttered speech often report that their listeners have difficulty understanding them, and attribute this to factors such as their speech rate, clarity of speech, or the organization of their message. To outsiders, cluttering seems like an awkwardness that can simply be avoided by speaking more quietly, thoughtfully and carefully. But in reality it isn’t that simple. It could take a great effort for clutterers to be able to speak like that. Also, for most of them, in their minds their speech does sound fluent or intelligible. This could lead to a lot of confusion and (mutual) misjudgment about this speech-language impediment. As a result, people who clutter often feel misunderstood.
I never knew how to explain what went wrong in my speech. Couldn’t really call it stuttering, but didn’t know how to describe it correctly, either. I just thought I was being clumsy, “floundering” with my words. Never would have guessed there actually is a name for what I do. And that I am not the only one!
I always thought I stuttered: that’s exactly what people told me. Yet I have never felt completely at ease with this term. I knew I “stuttered” in a different way, never really got stuck in my words. But the strangest thing of all is that I had never heard of cluttering before, not even from my speech-language pathologist. Now I know exactly what I do: a major difference!
When my daughter and I found out that she doesn’t stutter but clutter, a whole new world opened up to us. For years we had been looking for a suitable therapy, but didn’t find one. Now we know that cluttering is different from stuttering. I would have liked to have that knowledge much earlier.
It’s about time
Although cluttering is rather unknown to the general public, this speech-language disorder nowadays receives more and more attention. Cluttering is on its way to get widely respected as a fluency disorder in its own right. Also, an ever increasing number of speech-language pathologists around the world is able to put their finger on it. This is good news for people who clutter. They can now count on the help they deserve. Some experts (by experience) explain.
Too fast for words: the book on cluttering
Are you a person who clutters? Or do you suspect that you clutter? Order Too fast for words now and learn everything about this intriguing phenomenon.