LegendiFluent — speech that flows smoothly. Disfluent — speech interrupted by a stutter: a repetition (“b-b-ball”), a prolongation (“ssssnake”), or a block (the word gets stuck). This detector is tuned to prolongation.
The speech gate implicated in stuttering and the tic gate in Tourette’s are both basal-ganglia gating loops — Striatum → GPi/SNr → Thalamus. Where the loops are structurally isomorphic, findings on gating in one may inform the other.