Two of my kids had trouble with "r". At one point the school's VP said it if isn't fixed by 5th grade its nearly impossible to fix, so we stuck with the pull outs during school. (We had wondered if it was really a big deal and worth the lost instruction time). It worked by the end of 4th grade. The other is younger and still in speech.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 12 year old had this issue for a while and didn’t really see any results from speech therapy. It was mostly us working on it at home. She pronounces all the Rs at the beginning of words fine now but still has a little trouble with Rs at the end of a word like “brother” or “neighbor” but people don’t really realize and think it’s an accent.

The vocalic r ("er" sound in brother) is a complely different sound then a beginning r and that is why people should go to an SLP and not just work on it at home without guidance.

I am this poster and she was in speech therapy for a long time, it just didn’t really yield any results for the ending of words , just the beginning. After about 4 years, they said she “graduated” and we moved on still with this issue.

We went weekly to speech therapist for about 3 months, but practiced the exercises every day. Did two siblings simultaneously.
Worked very well!

My son worked on his rs from 2nd though 8th grade. He started putting a lot more effort into it in 7th-8th and was thrilled to “graduate” from speech before high school.

Anonymous wrote:My 12 year old had this issue for a while and didn’t really see any results from speech therapy. It was mostly us working on it at home. She pronounces all the Rs at the beginning of words fine now but still has a little trouble with Rs at the end of a word like “brother” or “neighbor” but people don’t really realize and think it’s an accent.

The vocalic r ("er" sound in brother) is a complely different sound then a beginning r and that is why people should go to an SLP and not just work on it at home without guidance.

SLP here and the longer you wait to correct it the harder it will be to fix. Some kids really struggle with the /r/. Your child needs to be practicing often and self monitoring thier own productions. Do you do the homework? You should five mins everyday of practice will do wonders The ap Articulation Station is very good to help your kid practice at home. Have your child record the production listen and decide if they said it correctly. (This advice is only relevant if your child is already able to say the sound correctly on their own otherwise they will practice wrong and thats bad.)

Also some children really don't put in the effort to correct the sound as they just don't care and that's likely the case with the 12 yr olds you know. No amount of speech therapy will fix it if the kid just doesn't put in the effort.

the slp was useless in our case. dd eventually outgrew it completely on her own,

It took my DD 3 years of speech therapy through her FCPS elemetnary school, but she was able to master the Rs. The speech therapist was very good. I think she was pulled out to see her a couple times per week.

Anonymous wrote:I bought the thermos with the special straw and actually thought it made a difference- also with sleep apnea. But then he brought it to school and lost it sigh. I hate to buy another one it was $100…

What is that?

Asking as someone else who just started speech therapy for Rs (mid-word is where we struggle).

I bought the thermos with the special straw and actually thought it made a difference- also with sleep apnea. But then he brought it to school and lost it sigh. I hate to buy another one it was $100…

I was this kid. Luckily, my mom was a SLP. I have vivid memories of practicing "garbage truck" (and many other words/phrases) with her at home. She made it fun and by about 8, we got my tongue and palate working together. I have also heard orthodontia may help. It really is a joint effort of parents and SLP, so keep at it and she will get there!