Fluency Disorders, Stuttering and Cluttering

Fluency 1. Fluency Disorders, Stuttering and Cluttering.

Fluency

If you look at the dictionary, fluency means 'a natural quality without obstruction' In language, it refers to the 'flow of speech'. In other words, it means that the listener can comfortably and easily perceive the flow of information and speech sounds that the speaker wants to convey.

However, in communication situations, there are times when speech does not flow smoothly in a natural melody appropriate to the required content, stutters, or becomes blocked. And as these phenomena worsen, the frequency of abnormal disfluency due to intrinsic and extrinsic factors increases, and when difficulties arise due to verbal behavioral / emotional symptoms, this is called a fluency disorder. 

Fluency Disorders.

Fluency Disorders are an abnormal rate, rhythm, and disruption of speech flow characterized by repetition or prolongation and blockage of phonemes, syllables, words, and phrases, and may be accompanied by excessive tension [ASHA, 1993].

Fluency Disorders are largely divided into Stuttering and Cluttering.

Stuttering is a symptom that interferes with the 'flow of speech' that should be produced smoothly and effortlessly due to Disfluency caused by 'repetition / extension / obstruction / insertion / silence'.

Cluttering is a disease in which speech speed is fast or uneven, phonemes and syllables are omitted, and speech is difficult to pronounce due to lack of space, leading to a downward curve in speech intelligibility. This is also why most people who speak quickly experience stuttering.

Disfluency occurs in both conditions, but the biggest superficial difference here is that people with typical stuttering symptoms increase their disfluency when asked to observe their own speech, whereas people with fast speech tend to speak at a normal rate and in a comfortable flow. It has the characteristic of immediate improvement. And compared to stuttering, there are fewer cases of people complaining of internal / external difficulties due to pure fasting speech symptoms. 

As such, fluency disorders, especially stuttering, are caused by interference between one's own efforts to speak fluently and the reactions of the surroundings, so they have a very complex mechanism, and the symptoms of stuttering that appear on the surface, like the tip of an iceberg, lie beneath the surface. Includes a variety of hidden temperamental / environmental factors. 

We took the time to briefly introduce fluency disorders. Let's look at them one by one.