/r/ sound errors: free evidence-based tips and resources to reduce ‘gliding’ [Give them a go!]
Long-term problems with the /r/* sound can be hard to fix.
Most children learn to say /r/ correctly by 5 years and stop “gliding” /r/ to /w/ by 6 years of age. But not everyone succeeds with their /r/ sounds:
- Around 25% of kids with a history of speech delay as preschoolers continue to have problems with /r/ at 9-12 years of age.
- Of the 1-2% of the population that have persistent speech errors, more than 50% of them have problems with /r/.
Does it matter?
Difficulties with a single speech sound may sound trivial in the scheme of things. In general, people seem more tolerant of speech differences than in previous generations, and some people simply don’t care that their /r/ sounds more like a /w/ or “er”.
But persistent /r/ errors can still affect people negatively:
- Some kids are mocked and bullied at school.
- Some adults experience discrimination in job interviews and work.
It doesn’t help that there’s a long history of film and TV shows where people are mocked for /r/ differences and difficulties, e.g.:
- Elmer Fudd in Looney Tunes cartoons;
- Caesar in Monty Python’s Life of Brian;
- the Impressive Clergyman in The Princess Bride; and
- Barry Kripke in The Big Bang Theory.
No one should be teased or bullied for speech errors. But, in the real world, it still happens.
The good news is that it’s never too late to work on /r/.
How to say /r/ – practical, evidence-informed guidance available for free!
There are at least two main ways to produce a good /r/ – bunched /r/ and retroflex /r/ – and a detailed discussion of the anatomy and precise tongue positions of each can get a bit technical for non-speech pathologists.
Helpfully, in 2020, Professor Jonathan L. Preston and colleagues published an open access peer-reviewed tutorial on motor-based /r/ distortions (see links below).
What follows are some of the key takeaways we learned from the tutorial that inform our practice to this day.
The basics
In simple terms, /r/ usually involves:
- lifting up the front of the tongue;
- pulling the root of the tongue back toward the back of the throat;
- keeping the tongue body (behind the front of the tongue) low in the mouth;
- lifting the sides of the tongue so they touch the molars or gums; and
- slight lip rounding.
The main thing is whether the person can produce an /r/ that sounds acceptable.
There are lots of ways to get there!
Non-verbal cues for /r/
Teach anatomy basics:
- Some people benefit from being taught basic tongue anatomy so they understand the main parts of the tongue (e.g., tongue tip, blade, body, root, and sides).
- Younger kids can learn tongue anatomy with drawing, labelling, and/or PlayDoh sculpting activities.
- Appendix 1 of Preston’s tutorial includes a fully-scripted way of introducing /r/ that includes references to labelled pictures contained in supplemental materials (linked below).
Video and audio models:
Kids and adults can look at animations, dynamic MRI videos, and Ultrasound recordings on websites like Seeing Speech and Articulatory GIFs from the Speech Production Research Lab (see links below). From audio models of /r/ in isolation and in syllables and words, we can encourage people to experiment with different tongue positions to see if they can imitate the sounds.
Gestures:
We can use hand gestures to represent the tongue shapes and movements (see examples from the Preston tutorial cited below).
Verbal cues for /r/ – examples
- Front of tongue up:
- “Lift the front of your tongue up off the floor of your mouth; don’t lift the back of your tongue.”
- “Lift the front of your tongue as if you were going to make a /t/ but don’t raise it high enough to touch the roof.”
- Root of tongue back: “Let’s work on moving the back of your tongue. Go back and forth between /i/ (“ee”, as in “eat”) and /a/ (as in “bath”). Try to stay back for /a/ and keep it back there as you lift the front of the tongue up for /r/.”
- Together: “Lift the front of your tongue up toward the roof of your mouth, but not touching the roof. At the same time, make the back of your tongue tight and pull it back towards your throat.”
- Lips steady: “Keep the lips steady”, “don’t push your lips too far forward”, “keep the corners of your lips tight”.
Getting to /r/ from other speech sounds
Another tried and tested way to get to a decent /r/ is to “shape” it from another speech sound that the person can already say confidently.
- From /a/ (as in “father”): “Say /a/ and hold it. Feel the back of your tongue stay low and back for /a/; now lift the front of the tongue up off the floor of the mouth, lifting up and back.”
- From /i/ (“ee”, as in “eat”): When you say /i/ the front part of your tongue is in a spot that’s pretty close to a good spot for an /r/ sound. But for /r/ you need the root of your tongue to go back. Make an /i/ sound and try to pull back only the back of your tongue. Try to lift your tongue tip up just a bit to make an /r/.”
- From /l/: “Say a long /l/, but this time as you’re saying it, drag the tip of your tongue slowly back along the roof of your mouth – so far back that you have to drop it.” (Obviously, this one requires the person to be able to say /l/.)
Where we start:
- We don’t spend much time working on /r/ in isolation because the way we produce /r/ depends on the sounds before and after the /r/ – especially in conversation.
- Start with just two to four different syllables.
- When modelling Australian-accented speech sounds, we start with:
- /ra/ (as in “rather”), because the /a/ will help to pull the tongue back);
- /rae/ (as in “rat”), because the short /ae/ sound will help keep the tongue body low; and
- /tri/ (“tree”) or /dra/ (as in “drama”), because /t/ and /d/ both require the front of the tongue to be elevated.
- We don’t practice syllables ending with /r/ to start with. In Australian-accented speech – unlike American English – we tend not to end words with the /r/ sound. For example, we say /ka/ for “car”.
- Initially, we also avoid syllables like /ru/ (as in kangaroo) and /roʊ/ (as in “row your boat”) as these sounds have a high back tongue position and encourage lip rounding.
- In the first stage of therapy, we do “blocked practice”, where we repeat the same target syllable many times in a row, using lots of cues, shaping techniques and feedback on how the sound is produced, before moving to another syllable. This can take a while!
- Depending on the person, we might then do some practice alternating syllables (e.g. /ra/-/dra/, or /la-ra-la-ra/).
What we avoid
- We don’t include non-speech oral motor exercises (e.g. tongue wagging, blowing, licking or tongue-strengthening exercises, etc) as there is no evidence that they do anything to help people with /r/.
- We don’t use tactile cues along the mylohyoid as this practice is not supported by research (or logic).
Where to from there?
Once we have worked on syllables and found an /r/ sound that is acceptable enough in blocked practice, we step up to variable and randomised practice using principles of motor learning to help retain and generalise the new /r/ to different word positions, and to more complex words, phrases, sentences, stories, conversations, explanations and opinions. For more detail about what that involves, and an example of a program built on these principles, see the links below.
Thank you and credits
As always, we are so grateful for researchers like Professor Preston and his colleagues for providing practical, evidence-based support to time-poor front line speech pathologists so we can improve the way we support people with longer-term /r/ challenges!
For much more detail, and related reading, please check out the links below.
Go Deeper:
Preston JL, Benway NR, Leece MC, Hitchcock ER, McAllister T. Tutorial: Motor-Based Treatment Strategies for /r/ Distortions. Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch. 2020 Oct 2;51(4):966-980. See Appendix for script to introduce /r/.
Anatomy cue images (Preston et al., 2020)
Articulatory GIFs – Speech Production Research Lab at Syracuse University
Seeing Speech: /r/ animated MRI
Seeing Speech: /r/ animated MRI 2
Gestures:
Source: Preston et al., 2020: Examples of hand gestures to cue bunched (left) and retroflex (right) /r/.
Related reading from us:
Lifting the lid on speech therapy: How we assess and treat children with unclear speech
Important update: In what order and at what age should my child learn to say his/her consonants?FAQs
Will tongue-wiggling, blowing bubbles, or making funny faces help my child to speak more clearly?
How to use principles of motor learning to improve your speech
For an example of a speech treatment program based on principles of motor learning, see our Pesky Lisp Fixer
*Technical note: Australian English /r/ is most accurately represented with the International Phonetic Alphabet symbol /ɹ/, but we will use /r/ in this article for simplicity.
Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.
Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language
Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.
