Curious to hear from SLPs and other parents whose kids have done speech to correct R sounds? What is the correct tongue placement?
Our private therapist has my dd have her tongue curled back and touch the top of the roof of her mouth (tip of tongue is straight up) while her lips are in a smile position.
Her new school SLP has her put her tongue curled back and all the way curled so that the bottom-side of the tongue is touching the roof of mouth. (my dd insists this is wrong, says she can only get gurgles out - this seems real awkward to me too - maybe she just doesn’t understand?)
I don’t do it either way? My tongue is back, the sides are curled up and the sides tend to touch the top of my mouth, but the tip does not. My lips are more ‘pursed’ - ‘sort’ of like if you were to blow thru a flute or bottle - but not blowing.
Thoughts? are there just different philosophies on correcting this?
Are there exercises that you can do?
Wow - so I’ve been doing it wrong all my life. I’m not from NY tho - I have a mid-western twang. More southern. If I spend 3 days with a Texan you would never know I’m not a native of the State!!
My husband ‘purses’ his lips on R’s too. He grew up in the upper penn. of Michigan.
Is there a way to ‘strengthen’ your tongue so it better ‘curls back’? Since I don’t do Rs that way - I just don’t know how to reinforce. I can’t even catch her when she does it right or wrong?
Do most SLPs typically have the student repeat the sound alot? beginning, middle, ending?
tongue muscles
Well, I’m not an SLP, rather a linguistics major, so I’ll leave the exact teaching procedures to someone who knows them.
The tongue IS a muscle, and so it can be strengthened by exercise like any other muscle.
Also, like any other physical skill, if you have to change you have to “unlearn” the old habit, and this is harder and harder as time goes on, which is why earlier is better for any therapy.
On the lip formation, I find that I can make a perfectly good r with anything from a wide Alfred E neumann grin to a a semi-rounded but loose formation like short u (as in up) or short o (as in off).
But if I go to a tense and completely pursed position like long o (as in open ) or oo (as in moon), the r turns too close to w.
So the degree of rounding and the tenseness of the muscles is what matters.
Just experimenting here, I find that I can push my tongue against the roof of my mouth, both in a flat position and in a curled-back position, and feel the force in the muscles; I can also pull it way, way, way back in the curled position, and then push it forward; isometric exercises like this could possibly be useful — discuss with your SLP
In any form of teaching, repetition and practice is the key, and even more so in physical skills. So if your SLP is working hard, there should be a lot of repetition — but not always exactly the same, rather using the skill in every way imaginable.
thanks
I really appreciate your response to my post. I have been practicing the curled tongue and I think I do articulate better (I don’t think I articulate very well and has been getting worse with old age!)
If it curl my tongue and touch the top of my mouth, I get a gurgle sound -I think that is what my dd is struggling with. But now I can reinforce with her to listen to her new SLP!
The private SLP she had her doing tongue thrusts - straight out the mouth and then she would have to stick tongue out as far as she could and curl up to touch nose and bottom to touch chin.
gurgles and tongue thrusts
I get the gurgle when the sides of the tongue are touching the roof of the mouth too — tongue in a cupped position sealed against the roof of the mouth, as in n.
To get the good clear r, you want the tongue tip curled up and back, but the sides open to allow air to pass.
The tongue thrusts and touching the nose and chin are the kind of exercise I was thinking of. Ask the SLP if having her practice pulling the tongue far far back in and pushing up against the palate might also develop strength.
a sticky wicket
Hi DEA,
I guess I should offer my opinion since I am an SLP.. :roll:
There are different types of r’s and there are also other vowels that will color the placement, and sound that comes out. There is a difference in the r placements for the vowel colored “r” as in ar, and or sounds as in car and sore, but the placement and sound production of ir, er, and ur are pretty much the same…. as in sir, fur, and her.
R is developmentally one of the last sounds that children master. It may be produced in a variety of tongue positions. The tip is usally turned up and back, however it isn’t TOUCHING the roof of the mouth…The mouth must be open or the individual will produce a w for an r. You cannot make a w with the mouth open or make an r with your lips closed.
To make the [r] sound point of the tongue is raised towards the teeth and then turned backwards. The sides of the tongue touch the upper alveolar ridge and the teeth. The lipes are slightlyl apart. To make the [r] sound, raise teh tonuge point, part the lips and turn the motor on in the throat as the tongue vibrates and makes the starting car, or lion sound. also no two people make the [r] sound the same way. some ball the tongue blade up and forward while others turn the tip back. One should listen and use auditory emphaiss for quality of the [r] sound. One needs to learn to listen to the r and distinguish it from the er, ir, and ur sounds.
And r is one of the sounds that takes up a lot of muscles in the mouth. It sounds like the Private SLP is doing oral motor therapy and trying to strengthen her tongue.
Now when you make the r in the front of words it sounds different than when you have a vowel in front of it… rabbit, run, can you feel the difference, now try these
Initial run, rake, rug, race, rip, read, red, rose, robe,
medial, very story, spry, carry, orange, every, around, parrot, already.
Final are car, bear, for more, your, stair, tar, chair.
Here are some sentences
Run river run
Wrap the wire around the red rake handle.
Scrub the carrrot really hard with the brush to clean it
a razor blade is very sharp.
So to answer your question the tongue tip is up but it doesn’t touch the roof of the mouth…hope this helps you!! :lol:
Different languages and dialects have different r’s.
The one you want here is the General American r, the one that is standard across 90% of the continent and is used by most public speakers, for example almost all national news announcers. This is the form most SLP’s will teach because they want to teach a generally acceptable standard pronunciation.
This is called the “tongue-flap” r and is made by curling the tip of the tongue back — it doesn’t actually have to touch the roof of the mouth, but the SLP may teach the child to do that in order to help remember the placement. The one who has the tongue curled way back may be exaggerating the position as a learning technique. At the end of the r sound as the next sound is started, the tongue “flaps” down very fast and the tongue usually pushes forward fast. The lips are open relaxed, in about the eee position.
The lips are *not* pursed in the standard American r; the pursed lips form a sound that most Americans hear more as a w, and most people do not like this replacement (Many people make fun of Barbara Walters because she does this). Are you by any chance from New Jersey? The w replacing r is one of the East Coast variants, a dialect limited to a comparatively small number of people.
Also by lifting the sides of the tongue I can make a sort of r, but it is either more growled (like a French r) or if the lips are pursed, more w, than a standard American hard tongue-flap r.
You can find out more about this and many other fascinating things by going to your local universtiy library and looking at textbooks about linguistics, specifically sections/books on phonetics.