Chair of Health Care & Technology for Quality of Life

Cluttering, stuttering, reading and writing

Dr. Yvonne van Zaalen

Fontys University of Applied Sciences,

Institute of Allied Health Professions
 Cluttering
Chair of Health Care & Technology for Quality of Life

Cluttering is a fluency disorder characterized

by a rate that is perceived to be
abnormally rapid, irregular or both for the
speaker (although measured syllable rates
may not exceed normal limits). These rate
abnormalities further are manifest in one
or more of the following symptoms:
 ……
Chair of Health Care & Technology for Quality of Life

a) an excessive number of disfluencies, the

majority of which are not typical of people who
stutter
b) the frequent placement of pauses and use of
prosodic patterns that do not conform to
syntactic and semantic constraints; and
c) inappropriate (usually excessive) degrees of
coarticulation among sounds, especially in
multisyllabic words.
(St. Louis et al, 2007).
 Cluttering
Chair of Health Care & Technology for Quality of Life

• Cluttering is a disorder of speech fluency,

in which a person is not capable enough to
adjust his/her speech rate to the
syntactical or phonological demands of the
moment. (Van Zaalen, 2009)
 Main characteristics
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A fast and or irregular articulatory rate

combined with:
a. A higher than normal frequency of normal
disfluencies and pausing errors (too short and
on linguistical wrong places)
b. Errors in word structures (syllable sequencing
errors, overcoarticulation).
Chair of Health Care & Technology for Quality of Life

Levelt, 1989 language production

Articulatory rate
 Cluttering and stuttering
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8-15% Cluttering

33-55% Cluttering-
stuttering

30% Stuttering
 Chair of Health Care & Technology for Quality of Life

Levelt, 1989 language production

Cluttering
Stuttering
 Speech and writing

Model
van Ellis
& Young
Video cluttering

Peter Kissagizlis †
• A sample of Peter’s handwriting,
(phonological cluttering):
 A sample of Peter's "unguarded" typing, telling some of his personal story:
I have had problems for many years, which started when I was at schol as far as I can remember, reading out in
calss was one ot the problems, teacxhers would riducoue me for speaking funy, one wuol,d ay to me "speak ip
bioy don't mumble", felow puoils woueld taunt me, no one understod me properly, I msde freinds but don't nkwo
how myana.
I woked hard, I was quiet, and fiound it hadr to tlak to people about some thisnhgs, adn this has hapend al my
life and has held up my ecducation and employemnt. Even wehn I statred work people used to taunt me becasue
I taklekd funny! I wa sbulied at scgol and at work, no one seemded to care. Life was so frustrating and
intimidating, I had no idea that I had a porblem tlike \I know today, if I as awatre of tnis and the teacjhers ot my
partent had adddressed this, i could myabwe had some help, hmmm, maybe not, no one knwe about clutering in
those days, but it oculd have ben found that I had a comunication pronb;lem.
I have treid al my life to please peole, I was told thaty I would never do any god in life and I tried to probve
evrybody worng, I ewnt into busines in the 1970's and I struggeld to hold run a business sucsesfuly, I was not
harfd enought to condunt a bisusiness proplery, nad fater mnay eyars I had to amdnit defeat, I packed it al up
and went back to working fro zomseone else. At least I got pasid on a Friday every week.
Whne working in the garages I was a motoer vehicle techniician and was god at my job, it would have been
goukd ofr promotion, but each time I apliead for poromotion I was told dthat my spech was not suiyatbale for
speaing to customomers and for teh many aplications I made in fiddefernt companies thaye gave me the sdame
story.
After years of feeling insecure, differnt, isolated and excluded, I know Kknow the comndition I have, which is
clutteroimng, although it is not cured and nebver can be as fra as I am aware, at lwast I am aware of the
conditini aadn people wil learn from tihs, and poepke who sufer as I do wil be able t undrestand what they ahve,
the amin thinsg is, peiopokle worlkd wide awil be able to reecognise the condition and maybe the ptofessionals
can impement a suitable treainhg/teacjhing athen evebntaualy a treatment regime.
Ok, nuffs. enough! eh? the above sentences were typed as I type, I have made no attempt to delibertaly slow
down or edit the text, this sentence is deliberately typed slow (waht a difficult job!) and aslo I have edited some
of it, as even when typing slowly, I make mistakes.
Writing, syntactical cluttering

Man, 34 jr, MBO, 7:36 min

 Writing, stuttering
• Man,
36 jr,
MBO,
1:50 min
Boy, 9;6 yrs, cluttering
 Writing

• Handwriting Speech rate

• Sentence structure Spontaneous
Retelling
Writing
 Reading development
Fonemic awareness
Sound- letter-association
Correct and fast reading
Reading strategies
Fluent reading
Understanding reading
 Monitoring
Did I read what I wanted to read?
necessary:
• AC
• Auditory skills
• Lexicon
….
 Heightened audition
• Defstut / speech easy DAF/FAF/AAF
• AC => speech
 R., cluttering-stuttering
• Without auditory feedback:

• With auditory feedback (wispher phone):

5 minutes later
without therapy
 Cluttering and reading
• Errors in or omission of small words
• Fast and/or irregulare rate
• Prosodic errors
• Telescoping
• /b/ - /d/ substitutions
• Guessed reading
• Error rate reduces in slow speech
• HAF positive effect
 Stuttering and reading
• Sound or word fear influences stuttering
severity
• Outside time limitations
• Errors: type and number normal
• Benefit from whispered or coral reading
• Negative response to HAF