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From: Brian Humphrey
Date: 10/19/01
Time: 4:20:10 PM
Remote Name: 137.52.99.79
Dear Dr. Scallon,
Thank you for your insightful question.
I was very interested to read your description of your son's dysfluencies, and to note how very closely your son's speech parallels that of my patient, B.B.
Cluttering is a speech and language disorder characterized by abnormal fluency. Unlike stuttering, cluttering is marked by fluency breakdowns of units larger than the sound or syllable (e.g. word and phrase repetitions, incomplete phrases, sentence revisions, or phrase revisions). A rapid and/or irregular speech rate is frequently observed. Unlike most people who stutter, people who clutter often do not show complete awareness of their disfluencies.
My patient, B.B. exhibited some characteristics of cluttering, but other features of his speech did not support a diagnosis of cluttering. Consistent with cluttering, many of his dysfluencies involved units larger than a sound or syllable; word and phrase repetitions and sentence revisions were evident; speaking rate was relatively rapid and sounded irregular at times; and tension or stuggle were not evident. He denied problems with his speech and showed only limited awareness of his dysfluencies. He was more dysfluent when he relaxed, and he was more fluent in situations where he would be likely to consciously monitor his speech; this pattern is considered to be more typical of cluttering than stuttering.
However, B.B's sentence revisions usually added information and did not usually alter the topic or the basic sentence structure; he did not appear to have significant word avoidance or word retrieval problems. His most frequent dysfluency type was final part-word repetitions, and this type of dysfluency does not have a documented association with cluttering. For these reasons, I decided that a diagnosis of cluttering would not fit my client.
The symptoms you describe for your son raise the possibility that he may be cluttering. A speech-language assessment by clinician knowledgeable about fluency disorders, especially someone with an interest in atypical fluency disorders, may provide you with helpful information.
If you have specific questions about cluttering, you may like to pose some of your questions on the ISAD 2001 "Office Hours: The Professor Is In." Dr. Ken St. Louis, one of the professors holding "office hours," is an expert on cluttering.
Please let me know if I may be of further help. If you have further questions about your son after the conference ends, you could e-mail Judy Kuster via the ISAD 2001 conference home page or the Stuttering Home Page, and then she can put us in contact. All the best to you and to your son.