About the Author: My name is Ciel Udbjørg. I am 63 years old and I am a recently retired tram driver. I have always cluttered, but it might not have manifested itself before 4th grade, when I was 10. I have been a member of STOLT since 2017, having been formally elected to the board around 2020, a post I still have. I have been the editor of the Norwegian Association’s magazine  “Stamposten” since 2024 and I became a member of the board of ICA in 2024.

This article was first published in “Stamposten”, the magazine for The Norwegian Association for Stuttering and Cluttering (STOLT) in February 2018. I was then working as a tram driver (and I am now retired after 39 years, 1 month and 28 days).

I don’t really stutter, but on the other hand, I have a nice “cluttering speech”. I’ve had that for years, but I wasn’t diagnosed with it until 1997–98. Most likely, this was an unknown form of speech disorder in the dark 60s. What I was diagnosed with, and got corrected, were problems pronouncing the (Norwegian) skj-, kj,- and tj-sounds correctly. Any stuttering was not mentioned, nor was cluttering speech.

I don’t remember anything more about this until about 3rd or 4th grade, when someone in my class started teasing me for my dysfluency. It eventually turned into a bullying problem, but the school didn’t understand what was going on, it was “just” general bullying that was eventually addressed. It should be said that my nemesis himself stuttered a bit, so maybe he had a need to hide it? I can’t remember him having any problems in class because of his stuttering, nor in the schoolyard (where many a fight was fought). In middle school, there were other things to “address” for bullies and others, but fluency difficulties were still unheard of. My nemesis passed away and died all by himself (from a bad heart) at the young age of thirty-something , so I guess it could be said to be karma?

But back to the cluttering speech. In high school, I (and a bunch of others) were portrayed in “Forsøksgym Funnies” by Christopher Nielsen (I was told to talk about what was closest to my heart: trams, while he drew me…). And my character stutters. But there was no bullying, but no one there knew anything about cluttering speech. It was probably not until 1997–8 that I got a push from an acquaintance and contacted the then Bredvedt Center for Speech Therapy at Rødtvedt in Oslo. After a few hours with a speech therapist there, “cluttering speech” was diagnosed. Finally, I had a diagnosis, a name for my remarkable pronunciation (or, rather, speech dysfluency). But not much came of it, apart from a handwritten note with something on it saying “co-articulation”. A little later I was invited to a meeting with some speech therapy students, and there was another clutterer! The first one I had ever met “in the wild”! And it was really spooky. When she spoke, it was just like hearing myself in a recording! I met her by chance in the city once later, and it was still just as strange. And so the years went by. There was no more speech therapy, nor any more clutterers.

Then the fateful day came when I was sitting with my morning coffee and leafing through the weekend supplement of the newspaper Verdens Gang. There was a portrait interview with some celebrity, who had overcome his stuttering with the help of the McGuire method. And: NIFS (The Norwegian Association for Stuttering and Cluttering, now STOLT) was also mentioned. It had “Cluttering speech” in the name, and I checked the website (Google is your friend!). It was as true as it was written, I signed up on the spot. Once I became a member, the organization announced that they were looking for people for the board for 2018. Given that people with cluttering speech in my eyes are as common as hen’s teeth, I raised a virtual hand in the air and announced that I “made myself available”. There was a short telephone interview with someone on the election committee, and at the annual meeting I was elected as a deputy on the board.

How does cluttering speech manifest itself in everyday life?

You are easily misunderstood, and often have to repeat things. In conversations, people sometimes get that glassy look and start answering “out of the blue”, like “Umm, five o’clock!” (or, just like “yes”, “no” and a smile). At my job as a tram driver, it’s a bit of a mix. Before, we were the ones who called out stops, and some of the names were tricky, because there are some words that seem to stop. Especially “Institutt”. Long names are also demanding, “Universitetet Blindern” and “Rikshospitalet”, as well as “Nobel-Instituttet”. We clutterers are experts at swallowing syllables and the beginning or end of words. And long words are quickly compressed to half, often without us even realizing it. Fortunately, the calling out of stops has now become automatic, but sometimes we have to talk to the passengers when there is a “deviation”. Everything from a car parked so the tram can’t get past it giving a “20 minute stop” to acute deviations due to power outages, defective trams (or buses) blocking the track, having to take other routes and the like. Then it happens that people come forwards to me and ask me what I was saying (or trying to say).

Now, I know that some trams’ loudspeaker systems are bad, but not all are, and then it must be that I have been unclear in some way even though I do my best. We also have radio communication with the traffic controller (dispatcher), and there I try to be brief. That is, to use short words and sentences (“parcel” or divide them up). But as most people, both stutterers and clutterers, know, if you are tired (“brain fog”, long day with lots of stress, or a bit of lack of sleep), then things can get confusing. In which case you just have to make the call again, or pick up the phone. So you get used to it… 

As far as NIFS (STOLT) is concerned, I consider myself to be the association’s cluttering alibi (nothing less!), and have started up the local chapter in Oslo again. And there, by the way, another clutterer has appeared! And as for help with cluttering speech: Speech therapy is on my to-do list, but DAF (Delayed Audio Feedback) in the form of a (roughly) free app, works. DAF works by recording what you say and playing it back in your ear with a suitable delay, and possibly also at a different pitch. The downside is that you have to lug around headphones or earbuds, it eats up battery power, and it becomes hopeless in noisy environments (you get all sound as an echo, which is really tiring). But in one-to-one communication it works, and over time I think it can be a good tool. It is also available as a small gadget, the size of a hearing aid, but it costs a bunch of thousands of Norwegian kroner and is therefore best to get a referral from NAV (the State). However, it also works for those affected, and is much easier to deal with than a huge lump of a “smartphone” and the associated earplugs/earphones.