| |
You are here: Experts > Parenting/Family > Parenting Special Needs > Speech Disorders > Distorted ending /r/ sound
Expert: Dawn M. Moore MA, CCC/SLP - 11/5/2009
Question
Hi Dawn,
I gave birth to my 45 month old son with tongue tie but it was immediately cut by the pediatrician the day after. He doesn't have speech delay and can actually say all the alphabet sounds except for /r/. I know that it is normal for toddlers to say /r/ at the start of the syllable with /w/ sound but what is strange with my son is when he pronounce the ending /r/ with /ng/ sound, like 'car' as 'cang', 'father' as 'fadong', 'computer' as 'computong', 'farmer' as 'fangmong'. He is also saying /w/ sound for the /r/ at the start of the syllable. I am always trying to teach him to curl up his tongue to say /r/ but it seems he cannot. I noticed that his tongue is not relaxed enough so he cant do it. I sometimes help his tongue curl up using my finger but he is resisting it. I even press his nose & mine to let him know the difference of saying the sound of /r/ as 'ang' which is nasal and saying it correctly. He noticed that when I press his nose & say 'ang', he cant say it. He sometimes feel frustrated & say to me 'Mama I cant say the 'ang' which he means /r/. I am concerned because my 11 yr old daughter didnt have any speech problems and it is my first time to hear a toddler to sound the ending /r/ as /ng/. He is in preschool now & I observed that no one in the class has the same case and I think it is even the first time for the teacher to encounter such case.
May I know if you have already encountered a similar case as my son's? Would you know if he will outgrow this and approximately when? Or should we already see a speech therapist?
I would highly appreciate to get your reply. My son is a happy child and I dont want him to lose his confidence when he grows up because he cant say the /r/ properly.
Thank you so much.
Regards
Corie
Answer
No, I have never seen that error before, but it doesn't mean that he won't be able to produce /r/ when he is older. Given his age and the fact that it is his only error, I wouldn't be concerned yet. I would continue to correct the initial /r/ and you can do that simply by having him pull his lips back into a smile and move his tongue more to the back of his mouth. If his lips don't come together you will have an approximation of initial /r/ and that is how I start with my students when they work on this sound. Skip the final /r/ sound for now. I wouldn't worry about trying to correct it because he cannot even approximate it. I use initial /r/ as a foundation to correct final /r/ so helping him with the initial /r/ should do a lot for him down the road.
There are not a lot of SLP's that would see this child for therapy, but you could find one that could do a free screening, just to ease your concerns. They might see something that warrants intervention and without seeing the child, I might not be aware of it.
Dawn
Add to this Answer Ask a Question
|
|
