How is Cluttering treated?

Cluttering is a speech disorder that less known because it has a shortage of research and a lack of a widely accepted definition in literature. The common definition of cluttering is rapid, unclear, and disorganized speech. Cluttering is an important disorder that causes serious communication problems, therefore progressing research and finding accepted cures for cluttering is necessary. Despite the lack of data, there are several treatment modalities used by Speech and Language Therapists which are interacting with listeners, slowing speech, and using organized language.

The first treatment technique that helps people having cluttering to communicate easier, is interacting with listeners during the speech. Clutterers should train to understand the signals of the listener's confusion. Therapists teach clients to respond to such subtle signals of confusion such as the wrinkling of a listener’s brow, thus clutterers can anticipate, perceive, and respond to standard cues provided by listeners during conversations. Also, the clutterer can benefit from checking in periodically with the listener by asking, “Did you understand me?” or “Should I repeat that?” Therefore, clutterers can understand listeners get their speech or they should repeat.

The second effective solution for clutterers is slowing their speech. It is not easy because clutterers usually unaware of how fast they speak without somebody says to them. Recording their speech can help to calculate speech rate and provide awareness. Also, their speech can be followed by therapists and when their rapid spurts of speech occur, therapists make clients listen to slower models and clients imitate what they listen to slow their speech. In these ways, people having cluttering become to be aware of their speech rate and try to slow it as possible.

The last treatment approach is used by therapists to help clutterers for using organized and acceptable language. Besides speech rapid, people having cluttering often make complicated sentences using run-on, rambling verbiage that adds no useful information. Therapists can transcribe and show these cluttered expressions and warn clients. Then they help to make more syntactically acceptable sentences. In therapies, clients begin communication with simple, short sentences, and progress to longer, more complex ones with the guidance of therapists. Thanks to this technique, more fluently and understandable speech can be provided in time.

To sum up, primarily cluttering can be treated with interacting with listeners, controlling speech rapid and using acceptable language. Clutterers need therapists' help to use these approaches for their disorders. After various therapies, people having cluttering become to communicate better and their speech understandable.

References:

https://leader.pubs.asha.org/doi/full/10.1044/leader.FTR1.08212003.4

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (1999, March).

Terminology pertaining to fluency and fluency disorders: Guidelines. Asha. 41 (Supplement 19), 29–36.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268217951_Cluttering_Treatment_Theoretical_Considerations_and_Intervention_Planning

Volume 4, Issue 2, September 2014

Perspectives on Global Issues in Communication Sciences and Related Disorders (pages):57-62.

Ken St. Louis is widely known as one of the "founding fathers" of speech disorder cluttering. He has built up a successful scientific and clinical record in the last decades. In this video, Ken St. Louis talks about what elements can be taken up in the treatment of cluttering and provides tips for people who clutter.