>*"I now can "feel" when I have a* ***cognitive conflict*** *that triggers the "anticipation" of stuttering"* Great! *Acknowledging cognitive conflicts* \[intervention\] could be one of the first steps in your new strategy. **Question #1:** What cognitive conflicts exactly have you detected in your experience? How would you answer this? Answer: I would answer something like, my cognitive conflicts - that may result in not initiating speech movements (or not executing articulation), were: * *"It makes sense that I will stutter under a specific condition" \[story-telling\]* * *"I need to rely on a feeling of being stuck or out of control - to decide whether to initiate articulation"* ​ >*"I now can "feel" when I have a cognitive conflict that triggers the* ***"anticipation" of stuttering."*** **Question #2**: What are all the attributions to "stuttering anticipation", in your experience? I mean, what thoughts, body sensations, perceptions or inner experiences exactly leads to detecting a loss of control - regarding volitional motor control? Answer: If I would answer it, I would say something like, my stuttering anticipation took many forms (during my lifetime): * "I will stutter on this feared sound" \[cognitive anticipation\] * nervous feeling in the stomach (*note, I have a brother who usually anticipates stuttering if there is pressure in his throat, but I never experienced this myself. Goes to show you that each PWS has "learned" to associate different body sensations to the intrusive concept of "stuttering anticipation"* I consider stuttering anticipation simply as intrusive thoughts and feelings (see the free PDF workbooks [here](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22strategy%22+%22worksheet%22+%22intrusive+thoughts%22+filetype%3Apdf)). ​ >*"You cannot have both "accuracy" and "fluency"* I agree with a lot of ideas that Brocklehurst (PhD researcher) came up with, with most of them actually. However, I have another opinion regarding the "accuracy" tradeoff. But first, I want to explain something else: I believe that a lot of PWS consider "avoiding words and situations" popular avoidance-behaviors. I think the concept of "avoiding words and situations" is more of a secondary characteristic-thing. I believe it's far more important to address (and consider) the maladaptive actions: 1. instructing (or deciding) to not initiate articulation \[active intervention\] 2. or, not instructing to initiate articulation \[passive intervention\] (see the two differences?) Both (1) and (2) are in my opinion the core avoidance-behaviors, that one should address when targeting the primary symptom of stuttering (which Brocklehurst (PhD) describes as "inability to initiate articulation or execute speech movements"). However, in my experience, this "feeling of being stuck or out of control" (aka the inability perception that Brocklehurst discusses) is simply an intrusive thought or feeling, it's not actually "frozen". I believe that it's not a true freeze response. Instead, in my opinion, one type of speech block could be "learned" overreliance on the maladaptive "mental rule or cognitive condition": * *"I rely on a certain threshold - aka certain cognitive, emotional or linguistic demands & conflicts - to decide whether to inhibit execution of speech movements*" Here are some examples that I came up with: * So, this could mean, if one "learned" to initiate speech movements when he feels confident, then what he is actually doing is re-wiring himself by adding "limitations" to his speech performance. Does this concept make sense? * if one "learns" to rely on conviction to execute articulation, then he may - yet again - limit his volitional motor control, by not (often) executing articulation when he is "convinced" that he can't or doesn't know how to execute articulation - e.g., during a feared word