My 13 yo son is having trouble pronouncing his "r" sound. The hearing doctor speculated that his ear infections when he was young may have kept him from hearing well. His hearing is great now. We have tried to have him say his word again when at home, but haven't set aside time every day to practice. Is it ridiculous to want to help him at home? We can't really afford a speech therapist and don't really want to deal with the schools.
I might try Youtube at first. R can be a difficult sound to learn. Just search for "how to say the r sound" and several videos will pop up. Watch several with him and see which ones seem to help him pronounce the r sound the easiest. Then have him watch and practice daily. If he is still not able to produce the r sound all by himself (not in words, just in isolation) after a couple weeks I would find a speech therapist. If he is, I would have him practice it in words, then phrases, then sentences, and then in his conversational speech. I hope that helps (Former SLP)
Is it that he literally can't say it, or that he just doesn't say it? If it's that he physically can [e.g. you can get him to stop and actually say the word 'rose' correctly if you make him], then you can most certainly do it at home. My daughter's speech therapist gave us pages with pictures of words that began with the 'r' sound. She had to say each word on the page 10 times each making the correct sound daily. She did that with the initial /r/, medial /r/, and final /r/ sounds. It really did help her. She's still occasionally lazy with it--- most often when there's a final /r/ word coupled with an initial /r/ word [e.g. PoweR Rangers]. That's when you most notice her slide to the /w/ sound. If he physically can't make the sound, I'd recommend seeing a speech therapist if possible.
Thanks for the input. He can say it when he really tries. So, a large part of it is laziness. He is doing better, so I think I'm going to have to make it a part of his school day to practice.
8 y/o ds was still unable to pronounce the "th" sound this year so I really started to work on politely correcting him this year. All of a sudden I noticed it was a forced sound but he was saying it correctly when I complimented him on it he said he'd been practicing every night in his bed for 3 nights. If you listen carefully you can still tell he has to think about it but he does say it correctly every time now.
We have been having him say several words with r in them. After only a few sessions, he is already improving in his conversations.
