In my opinion: Neurological factors - in developmental stuttering - refer to the structure and function of the brain areas involved in speech production, motor control, and language processing. Environmental or psychological factors - trigger the inner conflict such as emotional, cognitive and linguistic demands and expectations - that then lead to impaired activation of the neural pathways of the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical loop. This is just my take on it. However, I find that people who stutter tend to ignore **the bridge** between the neurological and psychological aspects. Stop reading for a second, pause and let your mind ponder on what associations we have formed between triggers and neurological impairments? Psychological factors: * For example, we might (1) perceive (or anticipate) people reacting negatively, (2) evaluate our speech performance or certain triggers negatively * For example, in situations where it is important to sound confident - when trying to chat someone up or to sound amusing * There may be variation in how we evaluate vocal tension from word to word. So, for example, we may consider it important to sound confident when saying certain words but not other words. etc. etc. * For example, vocal tension makes the voice sound tense and strained, and this may be interpreted by the listener that we must be anxious or insecure or fearful or something like that. The listener may then respond negatively to us, because the listener finds our tone of voice unattractive. This can be a major problem for us if we are trying to sound confident or trying to impress the listener - in which case we are likely to interpret our own tense voice negatively -because it doesn't fit the confident image that we are trying to convey. This is especially a problem for us if our ego and self-esteem are dependent on how confidently we are able to come over to the people we speak to. So, in such cases, our own negative evaluations of our performance (or of our anticipated performance) leads to neural impairments such as a phasic drop in synaptic dopamine and to blocking The bridge: However, fluent speakers also increase dopamine levels under stress, during triggers, etc. So, then the following questions are: **Question #1**: If non-stutterers are triggered by emotional, cognitive or linguistic inner conflict, why doesn't this lead to blocking (or rather, inhibition of executing speech movements)? **Question #2**: Why did people who stutter learn the rule: *"Psychological trigger" = "inhibiting execution of speech movements"?* **Question #3**: Why do we even rely on this cognitive rule to limit speech performance (leading to involuntary initiation of articulation)? ​ **PWS on the internet often discuss psychological aspects, but ignore the exploration and investigation of this bridge. So, take a couple of days to really explore these questions!**