In my opinion: Part #3: Sanjeeva stated: *"I do not stutter in new situations such as speaking to a stranger at a bus stop, or in a critical situation such as angrily arguing with a landlord. So I began experimenting by imagining or play-acting different scenarios, even pretending to be talking to a child."* **My reply**: I think, in a subset of people who stutter, pretending to be talking to a child can ultimately reduce the unconditioned fear of social judgments/rejection. However, the problem with such a technique is that the brain may not properly learn that it is acceptable to allow speech execution even while it still (subconsciously) perceives a fear of judgments/rejection. In other words, once our value judgments change (which they may do naturally over time), we may begin to perceive similar (or other) anxiety-provoking stimuli, which can result in stuttering relapse (after a brief remission)—partly because the brain has not yet learned to allow speech execution while it perceives and reacts to those stimuli. Sanjeeva stated: *"Distraction and forgetting being a stutterer can be expedient for achieving fluency, but is not reliable."* **My reply**: Instead of continually searching for different distraction techniques, perhaps it would be more effective to find ways to extinguish the poorly conditioned execution threshold—i.e., the excessive stimulus-avoidance to execute the speech plan and the excessive regulation of speech-plan execution. Sanjeeva stated: *"As stutterers grow older, they learn to bypass the impaired pathways, every person finding a unique way to rewire the brain."* **My reply**: Yes. However, simply bypassing impaired pathways may not be an effective way to extinguish the conditioned stimuli and conditioned responses—such as excessive stimulus-avoidance to execute the speech plan. Sanjeeva stated: *"Knowing that stuttering is often associated with anticipation..."* **My reply**: Stuttering anticipation is simply a conditioned stimulus and, by itself, does not necessarily trigger stuttering. On the other hand, I argue that all speakers (by default) always anticipate stimuli in order to regulate speech-plan execution. Sanjeeva stated: *"Stuttering can be minimized by proper preparation to the point of rehearsing every sentence before it is uttered."* **My reply**: From one viewpoint, I agree that reduced cognitive load may generally improve fluency. Yet from another viewpoint, our perception of — and responses to — stimuli on a social-evaluative level are likely much more relevant. For example, in a subset of people who stutter, stuttering decreases when they prepare a script (because, I argue, on a social-evaluative level, they may for example feel less social pressure when preparing a script). In another subset, stuttering increases when they prepare a script (because, speaking from a social-evaluative level, they may for example, hold the preconceived idea that speaking spontaneously loosens regulation of speech-plan execution). Those are just two examples of associations (or reasons) that our subconscious uses to link stimulus-avoidance with the regulation of speech-plan execution. But ultimately, our subconscious mind may have learned to adopt a whole bunch of different reasons/associations that it uses to reinforce or weaken this conditioned link (because every person has different experiences and beliefs)