Is building fluency "bad'? Should we instead focus on sensitivity to stuttering?
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Is building fluency "bad'? Should we instead focus on sensitivity to stuttering? My reply: I think, broadly speaking, simply adopting the term "building fluency" could refer to addressing the feedforward system (or the forward flow of speech). For example: PWS letting their subconscious brain know that it should start executing the [speech plan ](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZkSc5ibIhkcxTmMcM-cRzkf3F1ORHro2/view?usp=sharing)addresses the forward flow of speech. It's a fluency law; all humans must perform this basic strategy/intervention to execute the speech plan. If this is true, the other side of the coin could be addressing the DISRUPTION to the forward flow of speech — the sensitization/struggle part in which PWS rely on the "need" to reduce a certain level of stimuli (e.g., a sensitivity to stuttering) in order to execute the speech plan. In other words, a poorly refined threshold determines when speech-plan execution is allowed by the subconscious mind or inner judge. Such need (or high expectation) can result in excessive regulation of speech-plan execution, ultimately producing stuttering-like disfluencies as the outward manifestations of this poorly fine-tuned threshold mechanism (or approach-avoidance conflict). Examples of what could trigger such an approach-avoidance response: PWS rely on the need (to execute the speech plan): A. “First, I need to reduce a certain level of sensitivity to stuttering in order to execute the speech plan.” B. “First, I need to reduce struggle (e.g., tension, fear, etc.) to execute the speech plan (or to make it easier to regulate the execution of the speech plan).” (" First, I need to increase a certain level of confidence, use certain techniques, or feel that I can speak etc - for speech execution to proceed") While adhering to those needs (reducing tension, accepting one's stuttering as permanent, not caring about stuttering, etc.) can ultimately increase fluency, it still falls under "controlled fluency" rather than subconscious fluency, because we are still relying on those needs to execute the speech plan — i.e., an excessive error-avoidance mechanism. So, perhaps resolving the “stutter problem” and moving toward stuttering remission would require unlearning reliance on those needs, so we do not need to decrease or increase stimuli (e.g., a sensitivity to stuttering) to execute the speech plan. Which would then result in subconscious fluency rather than controlled fluency — i.e., extinguishing the conditioned stimuli → conditioned response association so that the stimulus is separated from the automated conditioned response (i.e., better fine-tuning of the release threshold to release words/sounds for execution in which the regulation to execute the speech plan becomes less strict). In this third perspective, stigma is not the primary problem; rather, it underlies a deeper associative problem (stimuli → CR) and a failed attempt to extinguish this association (stimuli → adaptive response), which produces controlled rather than subconscious fluency. \~\~ Your thoughts?