Cluttering is a speech disorder that in many ways is similar to stuttering, but is actually much different than stuttering. It is most often described as a "mild stutter," or that the person is nervous or doesn't know what they are trying to say.

The unique aspect of cluttering is that the clutterer typically does not know that they are cluttering. So, probably most people who will be reading this will be friends or family of clutterers, because the clutterers themselves don't think that they have a problem.

The best way to tell if someone has cluttering is looking for excessive disfluencies. Disfluencies are:

a) Repetitions ("I will..I will...I will...go to the store"),
b) Interjections (filler words like "uh," and adding seemingly random words and phrases in the middle of other thoughts)
c) Revisions ("I'm going for a...to Wal-Mart," crossing out a thought, and replacing it with something else)

Examples:

Cluttering: "I want to go to the st...uh...place where you buy...market st-st-store and I don't have muh-muh ti-ti-time money."

Stuttering: "I want to go to the sssssssssstore and I don't have muh-muh- muh-muh-money."