**Part 2/3** **How does emotions exactly exacerbate stuttering?** There are a few different articles I can send you but here are some and in no way is this extensive. (I have hyperlinked the articles so hopefully it should direct you). The general consensus in the field is about difficulty with emotional regulation with stuttering. Similarly to if a person who does not stutter begins to trip over their words in a high stress/fear situation like public speaking. As to if it is a leading cause or a side effect, that cannot be answered without knowing what causes stuttering to begin with (which is a different area of conversation). Everyone is disfluent, not everyone stutters. 1. [Emotional reactivity, regulation and childhood stuttering: A behavioral and electrophysiological study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021992410001097?casa_token=Z0Y63tBeVIoAAAAA:cNF0O6x1x2YkvY4eNUSRttWZYgfo_Yb14sH-7vfadAGZR_uJ79gTlNFSEnRhH6CEt7B9e1exw8Y) \- Decreased use of regulatory strategies is related to more stuttering in children who stutter. 2. [Emotional Regulation and Its Influence on the Experience of Stuttering Across the Life Span](https://pubs.asha.org/doi/full/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00467?casa_token=A6YCq9_0gjMAAAAA%3Abti3SVAHD1NAdnQ9_-dIqJZ7QYl2uzfC9qau8q9rFjzua_p90u6-HNXVSpyfWku3X3dZUAiZMTFWo_U) \- For both children and adults who stutter, emotional regulation is a significant factor related to the adverse impact of stuttering; the relationship between emotional regulation and adverse impact may change over development. 3. [Relation of emotional reactivity and regulation to childhood stuttering ](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021992406000050?casa_token=qPxqjsnnECcAAAAA:ACwhHan5luM69Qnhn8-KU6c4c9EKe9IVbrZ7cWIz-FVLohh7CDIHeRYEhzwnoaKxBCVazWbQUZc#aep-abstract-id12)\- with their relative inability to flexibly control their attention and regulate the emotions they experience, may contribute to the difficulties these children have establishing reasonably fluent speech and language. **What exactly disrupts the automatic processes?** Can I have more context for this question? Are you asking about the automatic processes of speech production? If so, that is the big question that everyone is trying to figure out. We don't *know* what causes the disruptions, but we have theories that it is an interruption in the neurological system involved in speech production and processing. It is assumed to be a mix of difficulty with timing motor skills in speech as well as the feedback loop in speech processing (which is why delayed auditory feedback works so well for a short time). There are actually a large number of articles that discuss this. A few neural structures that are hypothesized to be included are the basal ganglia thalamocortical network in relation to the supplementary motor area (timing of motor movement), the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (speech sound activation), left inferior frontal gyrus (also known as broca's area for speech production in coordinating movements and language processing) and putamen (sequencing of speech sounds). This is my area of research in my PhD so I am more than happy to refer you to a number of different sources of information if you have specific questions on this.