Why is "R" so hard!?

R is a hard sound for several reasons:

One: The R sound is very sensitive. If the lips and or tongue are slightly out of place, or if your tongue is in the RIGHT place but not tense, your communication partners will hear it. 

Two: The location of the tongue cannot be seen. Meaning, those learning how to say R need to rely on verbal explanations and visual models, often made out of play dough, to figure out where to place their tongue.

Three: The R sound is influenced by the other sounds around it. The tongue and lip movements needed to achieve the R sound change depending on what letters the R sound is next to or where the R sound is in a word. 

Unfortunately, listeners are very sensitive to the R sound. Those that cannot correctly say their R sounds are often asked to repeat themselves and or are accused of having an accent. Difficulty with the R sound can even prevent people from being understood entirely!

Speech therapy is the best way to fix that tough R sound. In speech therapy at Green Light a mix of methods are used in conjunction with orofacial myofunctional techniques in order to straighten out that R sound once and for all.

If your child is struggling to correctly produce R, or if you have always had trouble with this sound, call Green Light to get help today. Let this be the last summer that R impacts your speech.

Waiting for a Speech-Language Evaluation

Waiting for your child’s speech-language evaluation can be anxiety provoking. The good news is, you can start helping your child today by modeling. Children learn speech sounds and language by listening to their caregivers talk. To help your child with speech and language development, while waiting for services to start, model speech and language by using the strategies below:

• Establish joint attention : Joint attention describes a situation in which you and your child are paying attention to the same object.

• Label the object(s) : Name the object(s) using very clear speech. If your child is having trouble saying specific sounds, draw attention to your mouth. Over articulate when producing the sounds that are difficult for your little one.

• Talk, Talk, Talk : Produce short and simple sentences throughout the day. Speak slowly and over articulate to ensure that your child can see how you are making the speech sounds. Talk about things that you can see or objects you want. For example: “I see cat.”; “I want apple.”; “I want Dada.”

The above strategies are a great start. However, they do not replace speech-language therapy provided by a qualified speech-language pathologist. While waiting for your child’s state mandated services to begin, you can also seek the help of a private speech therapist. 

Green Light sees children while they sit in line for state provided speech-language therapy. Green Light also provides supplemental therapy to children currently receiving state funded services. Contact Green Light today to see how we can help.

Phonological Disorders

Phonological disorders are speech sound disorders. Children and adults with phonological disorders have trouble correctly saying multiple sounds. These people make the same type of error or errors across several sounds. 

Error patterns, also known as phonological processes, often fall into at least one of three categories: place, manner, and voicing. Place tells where in the mouth the sound is made, manner tells how the air is managed to make a sound, and voicing tells whether or not the voice is used. Other common phonological error patterns include final consonant deletion and cluster reduction.

Examples of errors:

• Place: Saying “tan” for “can”

• Manner: Saying “pan” for “fan”

• Voicing: Saying “pat” for “bat”

• Final Consonant Deletion: Saying “ca” for “cat”

• Cluster Reduction” Saying “pane” for “plane”

When treating people with phonological disorders it is important to focus on correcting the error pattern or patterns, rather treating each sound individually. Correcting error patterns fixes the production of multiple sounds at one time!

Green Light treats clients that use a single phonological process, as well as those that use many. Evidence based methods are applied to ensure that therapy is effective, while client interests are incorporated to promote and maintain enthusiastic participation. For more information about phonological disorders schedule a free consultation!