The /r/ sounds does develop later than other sounds, so there is the possibility that it will self correct. However, it’s a good idea to provide a little help as well. If she’s unintelligible, then you should have her evaluated by a speech-language pathologist. Otherwise, you should try modeling and then asking her to repeat /r/ and /w/ words, such as ride/wide, whip/rip, ring/wing, run/won, read/weed, etc. Contrasting the words should help her hear the difference so that she can learn to self-correct.

Christine

I have worked with several parents before on similiar issues. You have some options. The most cost-effective method is purchasing The Entire World of R Advanced Screening form and administering it to your son yourself. That way you will have a clear picture of what he can and cannot produce. When you have this completed, you can purchase either The Entire World of R Instructional workbook which contains homework sheets for practice or many of the other products that we have for the /r/ phoneme. We would be happy to make some recommendations.

If that isn’t successful, we have The Entire World of R Support package which you administer the screening, send me the tape, I listen to it and recommend a target sound and give you support via e-mail or phone.

Good luck!

Our options for the summer are 1) private speech therapy (at over $200 per session, which is not covered by our insurance), or 2) working with me.

Do you think I, as a parent without a background in speech therapy, would be able to have success in helping him over the summer by using your program? And if so, which materials would you recommend I purchase?

Thank you.

Thank you!

I would administer The Entire World of R Elicitation Probe which is contained in the Entire World of R Advanced Screening or in the Entire World of R Book of Elicitation Techniques. This will enable you to screen your student and listen for correctly produced or misproduced contexts of medial ear + other consonants. You will be able to determine which are successfully or unsuccessfully produced. You can use these contexts which are contained in word lists in the Book of Elicitation techniques to help her practice the medial ear.

I have had great success with your program in the past, and I have a feeling that this student can also be successful, even with the cognitive delay. This is the first year I have seen her for therapy. Do you have any suggestions to help elicit a /vowel+r/ production?

She also has some other sound errors that she has been able to correct; she still needs cues to produce “sh.”

Thank you.

What type of computer program are you referring to? One for practicing /r/?

Before I recommend a computer program, I would try the following technique:
I have many /r/ students who are younger who have also shut down. What usually works is determining which /r/’s and word positions have been misproduced using The Entire World of R Advanced Screening. Many times, if they have been receiving speech for a year or more working on /r/, they misproduce nearly all of the /r/ variations. In that case, I administer the Entire World of R Elicitation Probe which is contained in the Advanced screening. This probe contains all nonsense words for all of the /r/ variations. Since there is no lexical meaning the students are usually more successful at producing these. Once you find a starting point of a successfully produced /r/ variation, use nonsense words for your target probe lists. These can be found in The Entire World of R Book of Elicitation Techniques.