As someone who with many years of first-hand experience dealing with the issue of stuttering, I’m a little perplexed why the issue hasn’t been covered more extensively, whether here or on the MSM, and how it affected Pres Biden’s performance last week. It’s not like it’s a secret that Pres Biden has a speech disfluency . He’s a stutterer. Has been his entire life. Specifically, the type of stuttering that Pres Biden has is called “Cluttering”. It’s the same type of disfluency my son has, which is where my 36-years experience comes in. FYI, I am not a professional speech therapist, just a mom who’s spent a very long time dealing with the issue.
Anyone who watched the debate may recognize these symptoms of Cluttering that Pres Biden displayed:
A fluency disorder causes problems with the flow, rhythm, and speed of speech. If you stutter, your speech may sound interrupted or blocked. It may sound as if you're trying to say a sound, but it doesn't come out. You may repeat part or all of a word as you to say it. You may drag out syllables. Or you may talk breathlessly, or seem tense while trying to speak.
A different type of fluency disorder is called clutter. If you clutter, you often speak fast and blend some words together or cut off parts of them. You may sound like you're slurring or mumbling. And you may stop and start speech and say "um" or "uh" often when talking.
Some people use accessory or secondary behaviors to prevent or hide disfluencies. These can include:
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Covering your mouth or pretending to cough or yawn to cover up stuttering
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Not speaking, even when you want to or need to
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Not using certain words that seem to cause stuttering
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Pretending to forget what you wanted to say
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Changing the order of words in sentences
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Using "filler" sounds between words to make the rate of speech sound more normal
Sound familiar? Pres Biden was trying to speak 500 mph, his brain going far faster than his words could keep up with, which was causing him to appear to slur and mumble. Sometimes he would use or insert inappropriate words or would even stop mid-sentence.
This was going on while at the same time trying to deal with the onslaught of lies, exaggerations, distortions, lies, lies and more lies spewing from the Deranged Orange Sphincter-Mouth (Gish-Gallop). No doubt Pres Biden understood he was losing control of his fluency (along with the debate) and was struggling mightily with it, often making it worse.
I’ve highlighted the coughing part here because, much to the stated annoyance of some here at DKos and elsewhere, Pres Biden coughs a lot. Part of the reason for his excessive coughing is due to his disfluency and he’s trying to create a “pause” so that his brain can reset.
Unfortunately, all this was exacerbated because the resulting fatigue from a rather grueling June schedule involving extensive traveling. He also may have had a bit of a cold. He was a tired man.
Cluttering has nothing to do with intellect, nor does this mean Pres Biden is becoming “feeble”. Young people Clutter. My adult son, who has wrestled with Cluttering his entire life, is a very bright man with a Master’s degree in Public Health, having graduated near the top of his class. This is why I know Pres Biden is more than capable of doing his job. I just wish he and his staff would talk more openly about it. A whole lot of people would benefit from a better understanding.
If Pres Biden doesn’t already have a speech therapist on staff, he needs to get one immediately. No, it won’t make his Cluttering go away, but he needs to be taught/reminded of the techniques he can use to minimize the affect of Cluttering as much as possible during public speaking.
In my own opinion, two things Pres Biden needs to do is:
1. Slow down! When my son was in speech therapy as a child, his therapist called it “turtle talk”. Whenever his disfluency kicked in, we had to reminded him to “turtle talk”. (I wouldn’t expect Pres Biden’s aides to shout “TURTLE TALK” when he’s on stage, but perhaps he can try to keep the concept in the back of his head when he feels his disfluency is kicking in).
2. Control his breathing. Deep, regular breathing with a little extra force (but not shouting) when forming his words.
Btw, I don’t understand why there’s such a negative connotation associated with Pres Biden’s use of a teleprompter. The words are his thoughts, just in written form being read back. It’s actually very useful for someone with a fluency disorder. It creates a separation, a “pause” between the words speeding through his head as it transitions to the words coming out of his mouth. We have to stop acting like there’s something wrong with that. Whenever someone criticizes Pres Biden for using a teleprompter, I always say “So What?”
Speaking of things clamoring around in one’s head, hopefully this helps make sense, as I’m not a writer (that’s my disfluent son’s amazing talent). I was in the processing of cleaning my house this morning listening to all the bullshit being vomited by MSM when it occurred to me that there may be a benefit to posting a quick diary on the subject.