Great reply! >What is the cause of stuttering? Is it to be found in the mechanism of composition and pronunciation of syllables? Drawing from this research, as I understand it, the core problem of stuttering is "syllable initiation" (SI). Another way to look at it is, we know what we want to say or how to say it, so the "speech motor program" in the brain is there. Problem: It's just that we have difficulty initiating this "motor program". It's like a CD in a jukebox, the CD represents the motor program or the speech plan, and the "play button" represents the ability to initiate articulation of syllables. And thus, if we put a CD in the jukebox, but don't press the "play button". Then the CD won't initiate/start, and thus the specific "motor program" (say, when we want to speak our name) doesn't initiate. Compensatory/avoidance strategy: Yes indeed, we can avoid the word and substitute it with another motor program, or we can change our voice (like Emily Blunt, who was acting as another person during her childhood-stutter) resulting in changing the speech plan (in thus changing the motor program), and then it might be possible to initiate articulation of another "motor program". However, if we perceive the new, substituted word also as having a too high treshold to initiate speech (just like when we were attempting to initiate the initial speech motor plan/program), then we won't be able to initiate this new "motor program" either, and thus, we would continue stuttering. Conclusion: If this is true, then the main question should be: * How can we stop relying on this perceived threshold to initiate speech? * What are all the heightened demands/expectations, etc - that disrupt the initiation of the "initial speech plan"? And, how to unlearn this classical conditioning? How to unlink these disruptions from "initiating the initial motor program"? How to build tolerance for (or become less susceptable to) these disruptions, and thus, initiate motor programs despite (blaming) triggers? How to stop relying on compensatory/avoidance strategies to initiate the initial motor program? You described your experience with speech therapy, however, these strategies/exercises from speech therapy seem to exarcerbate this core underlying SI problem, even if those strategies/exercises that you mentioned would lead to "easy stuttering" or "controlled fluency" (as opposed to subconscious fluency). This is just my own take on it.