**Summary:** System-level signatures of the interaction between social context and symptom severity, rather than isolated motor deficits, in developmental stuttering: Stuttering Manifests in communicative situations That engage motivational, self-referential, and regulatory processes in which speech is produced (rather than driven simply by increased dysfluency under social exposure) Eliciting stronger responses in the ventral striatum and medial prefrontal cortex (Ventral striatum is sensitive to being observed, receiving social feedback (27,28), and communicating self-relevant information) Extending social valuation effects Systematic reweighting of socially modulated activation as a function of symptom burden: higher anticipation of stuttering and greater overall impact were associated with stronger engagement of motivational circuitry, greater recruitment of frontal evaluative-control regions, and reduced contextual differentiation within speech-language cortex Stuttering anticipation and lived experience gradually shift the balance between control, language, and motivational salience-processing systems Stuttering heterogeneity and context sensitivity Contribution of social and emotional factors to the neural organization of speech processing Contributes to experience-dependent reorganization of cortico-basal ganglia loops over time Role of the nucleus accumbens in encoding motivational relevance and subjective value in socially meaningful contexts Socially directed speech Acquires greater motivational salience as anticipatory load increases, rather than simply becoming more rewarding In multi-system terms, anticipatory load appears to amplify automatic motivational signals in ventral striatum, consistent with how affective cues bias approach-avoid decisions via striatal circuitry Suggesting a non-linear developmental trajectory of ventral striatal circuitry Higher stuttering anticipation Was associated with reduced listener-related modulation in cortical speech-language regions (inferior frontal and posterior temporal areas that support speech planning and perception), as well as the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (BA 47), implicated in controlled semantic processing and in integration of value and context into language and decision-making. Rather than a uniform increase or decrease, it suggests that the motivational salience system for social communication is reorganized over time when language development is accompanied by a communication disorder such as stuttering In this context, speech directed toward a listener is likely to recruit motivational circuits differently in people who stutter than in fluent speakers, with downstream effects on speech-motor and control systems in a listener-dependent manner AWNS showed greater engagement of the subcallosal cortex, often linked to affective valuation and self-related appraisal (74,75), whereas AWS exhibited stronger activity in the medial inferior parietal cortex, including angular gyrus, associated with perspective-taking and integration of self-related information within a broader social context Suggesting that self-related speech may rely on partially distinct self-referential circuits in AWS and AWNS, potentially reflecting differences in how self-relevant information is evaluated or contextualized during speaking. On current accounts, ventromedial prefrontal cortex/subcallosal regions encode cognitive ‘maps’ for self-relevant value, whereas parietal regions support perspective-taking and contextual integration (33). Within this view, self-related speech in AWS may depend relatively more on distributed perspective-taking networks and relatively less on ventromedial prefrontal-centered self-valuation schemas, possibly reflecting experience-dependent adaptations to chronic social evaluative contexts. Together with the OASES correlations, these group differences indicate that both the evaluation of self-related speech and its modulation by listener presence vary systematically with the perceived impact of stuttering. This dovetails with evidence that, after fluency-shaping therapy, greater relief from the social-emotional burden of stuttering is linked to lower fractional anisotropy in the right frontal aslant tract, suggesting that both frontal gray- and white-matter systems contribute to how stuttering burden is experienced and reduced. Consistent reports of altered frontotemporal and cerebellar-orbitofrontal connectivity that scale with stuttering severity (49) further suggest that individuals with higher burden recruit evaluative and regulatory hubs within a broader fronto-cerebellar and temporo-parietal network. In our task, this is reflected in stronger context-dependent engagement of medial prefrontal and ventrolateral frontal regions when speaking under observation. Prior work using naturalistic interpersonal communication paradigms has shown that disfluent speech in adults who stutter is accompanied by right amygdala activity and reduced prefrontal engagement (18), highlighting a prominent role for limbic circuits during socially demanding speech. Our results complement these findings by showing that, even in a relatively low-stakes setting, higher stuttering-related burden shifts listener-related modulation toward medial prefrontal und lateral orbitofrontal valuation circuits. Suggesting that targeting motivational and evaluative processes, alongside speech motor mechanisms, may be important for understanding and treating the disorder. Greater engagement for directed relative to private speech suggests that speaking under observation places additional demands on evaluative and monitoring processes. Within AWS, higher OASES scores were associated with stronger listener-related modulation in medial prefrontal and ventrolateral frontal regions, indicating that individuals who experience greater stuttering-related burden recruit this evaluative-regulatory circuitry more strongly under listener presence. OASES and PAiS were not correlated (Spearman r(31) = 0.27, P = 0.13, two-tailed), supporting the view that these neural associations track distinct aspects of the stuttering experience and phenotype. Within a multi-system framework (33), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex may act as a hub, where learned negative consequences of speaking and current contextual cues jointly shape the value of speaking under observation