Great response. I agree that fear can trigger us to skip step 1 "decision-making to initiate speech motor programs". Of course, persistent developmental stuttering is not a true freeze response, and it include true primitive fear, rather a "learned" overreliance on reducing (blaming) this fabricated fear that we learned to replace with skipping step 1 from the list. Normal fluent speakers can be as feared as possible, or tense their larynx is much as possible, but this doesn't lead to a stutter block. Of course, this may also happen with people who stutter. Fear itself can never lead to a block, but using it as a reason to inhibit motor execution (regarding laryngeal, abdominal or articulatory speech muscles) (step 1) is guaranteed to lead to blocking. This is just my take on it.