>one day I tried visualizing that I was alone while speaking to classmates… and I was fluent the entire day. That's great. I don't think that would work for me as I've always been hyper-aware of others. Have you tried it again? Is it sustainable? >I wonder if the real trigger is the act of saying something to someone—the whole speech plan itself—as a conditioned stimulus. Essentially, every word, situation, and speaking condition can, if conditioned, trigger an approach-avoidance conflict. Your thoughts? I think so. Like a child might get scared of dogs after a scary experience with a dog, we might get scared of talking with certain people, or using certain sounds. As the child's instinct becomes to avoid dogs, part of our brain tries to avoid speaking situations, which also creates a conflict with expected social norms, compounding the problem. >It’s like there’s an in-built “social rejection” filter in all of us that, under fear, shuts down communication (i.e., approach behaviors). I think this filter exists in all humans, but maybe in people who stutter, this natural system becomes miswired or overly sensitive. Genetics and neurology might just set the stage for that miswiring to take root—or they contribute more to the onset of stuttering, and less to preventing remission. Because, as I understand it, most PWS recover from stuttering within three years of onset. But then the question we should ask is: Why three years? Perhaps those three years reflect a period where the maladaptive filter becomes conditioned layer by layer—like a knot or web that becomes very difficult to untangle. Yes, we are a social species, so most people have a need to fit in with others. Being alone is not a good survival strategy. This creates concern with the broad spectrum of human interaction. Some cope well with this and have minimal anxiety. Some cope less well and have more anxiety. Some have a neurological feature which disrupts normal speech production, and this may be amplified by anxiety, fear of rejection, etc. In the early years of life, neuroplasticity is at its strongest (I think), so with a supportive environment (externally and internally) the brain can create new neural pathways that strengthen fluent speech, but if the neural pathways of disrupted speech increasingly link to fear and/or speaking with other people, those pathways become dominant and it's more difficult to change.