In my opinion: Part #2: Sanjeeva stated: *"Sanjeeva did not remember experiencing any moments of anxiety in his pre-teens while he stuttered away."* **My reply**: When a toddler learns to speak more accurately, socially, respectfully and appropriately, they may not report conscious anxiety — but that does not mean fear of social judgements/rejection is absent. Speaking respectfully and socially is typically tied to an implicit fear of social judgment or rejection: if we behaved in ways others find inappropriate (e.g., if we stop speaking respectfully), listeners could respond negatively, which functions as an unconditioned punisher i.e., fear of social judgements/rejection. Much of this fear processing (and amygdala activation) is unseen/subliminal, so people can often act without conscious awareness of the unconditioned fear driving those actions. I do not think we should eliminate that healthy, adaptive fear — it helps regulate the execution of motor programs/speech plans. Rather than trying to remove fear, it may be more effective to fine-tune the execution threshold so that we do not excessively avoid stimuli anymore (that would normally excessively disrupt speech initiation). In conclusion, so I think whether Sanjeeva was or wasn't consciously aware of 'general fear' at age 7 - is likely not what's relevant. Sanjeeva stated: *"Secondary behaviors exacerbate stuttering."* **My reply**: Compensatory or secondary behaviors by themselves do not necessarily exacerbate stuttering, I argue. Any tools or responses (such as secondaries) could either fine-tune or poorly fine-tune the execution threshold depending on how our subconscious links this stimulus-avoidance interaction to that execution threshold. Sanjeeva stated: *"There is a conflict during stuttering between urge to speak and not to speak."* **My reply**: It would seem that Sanjeeva confuses "urge/desire to speak" with a fluency law. They are not the same. A feeling of desire is simply a conditioned stimulus; stimuli by themselves do not result in poorly fine-tuning the execution threshold. For example, we can have a desire to speak (i.e., a conditioned stimulus) while also having a desire to avoid fear (i.e., another conditioned stimulus). However, this does not, in and of itself, result in poorly fine-tuning the execution threshold, nor does it necessarily trigger stuttering. I think we need to eliminate this stigma. Likely a more relevant conflict would be between our own past experiences and the real-time perception of excessive stimulus-avoidance to execute the speech plan. Sanjeeva stated: *"Since my difficulty was always in starting a sentence, and because it got harder the more I thought, I tried not to think of the first syllable by distracting myself."* **My reply**: Distraction, in and of itself, is a form of stimulus-avoidance. I argue that perhaps most techniques could ultimately help fine-tune the execution threshold if done correctly. It is still important to distinguish between random techniques and the underlying conditioned mechanism that needs extinguishing. That is, "distraction techniques" may have resulted in (more) fluency for Sanjeeva, but distraction by itself does not necessarily result in properly fine-tuning the execution threshold.