Do children grow out of it if they cannot pronounce the letter 'R'?

[EmilieFloge]

I mean clearly not all will grow out of it fully but I just wanted to ask, is this something that a lot of children do for a while when they are little, and then stop, or is it something I should be trying to help ds2 with?

He is 5 now and it's become very obvious lately.

Thankyou.

ALL of my 3 replaced r sound with w.-youngest one at 4.9 still does -weally weally and the bigger 2 just gradually lost it.....
Weally miss ds2doing a big of work and wool dancing sigh
He is very young yet ;if you are still worried in a year or so they maybe ask at school etc but for now I'd just enjoy it

*rah to autocorrect wok and woll dancing

Oh brilliant, thankyou SO much. I am quite enjoying it I have to admit though it is very hard not to copy him and laugh. I'm trying my best!

Ah I really miss the way my little DS2 used to say his Rs as Ws. Probably about age 4-5 in fact when he started school it noticeably disappeared.

He and DD (then 2) had a hilarious conversation about how to say Doritos (pronounced as Dowitos). She was saying it the same way he did, but he told her it wasn't pronounced as a W like Weetos, it was a W like Dowitos

Unfortunately my son hasn't grown out of it. He will be 10 soon and if anything it's getting worse. He had glue ear when he was small & I think this was the initial cause.

Oh crikey. Hmm. Well it isn't a disaster if he keeps doing it. I hope he won't get pulled to bits for it at secondary school, that's all - I think it sounds nice.

I sort of wanted to check if he ought to be getting some help with it now, or just to leave it and wait and see - maybe I'll watch and wait.

Thankyou for all the responses, I appreciate it.

Is there any help for a child who can't pronounce R? I don't mean that sarcastically, I was just wondering, if that's the only letter someone can't pronounce, whether it would be considered an issue or not. I say this as someone who has a mild R impediment!

ds (13) still does it. In fact the whole family now talk about Gwanny instead of Granny. It's mild, not really noticeable to those who don't know ds well and it really doesn't matter

Jonathon Woss Ross for example - career as a TV presenter despite his R/W thing.

Our ds has been undergoing speech therapy. I asked about R/W and she told me they do not consider it as an issue until approx age 7
Hope that helps

I never grew out of it, I'm 37. If I really concentrate I can make it less obvious when combined with some sounds, but it doesn't come naturally and feels very awkward. Nobody, apart from my cheeky Dm and Dh have ever mentioned it though and I was never teased about it.

The only time I thought about it recently was when naming my three dcs, I liked Rose and Robert but discarded them for this reason.

Thankyou all, this is all very, very helpful.

I will see how it progresses as he gets a bit bigger and then if it's bothering him, I might look into ST or some self help we can do at home...if there is anything like that.

I shan't bother him with it for now though and I shan't honestly be worried if it continues into adulthood, I think it is very sweet really. And as you say, Jonathan Ross gets away with it.

Interesting thread thank you Emilie

I was wondering the same thing about my dd who is nearly four. She still has quite a prominent w sound instead of a r now. All her other sounds are perfect though.
It can be so very cute though < not helpful >

Hi, I had speech therapy as a child because although I could pronounce the letter 'R' and the letter 'W' I could only us ethe the opposite way round. For example i called rabbits "wabbits" and windows "rindows"

I grew out of it when I was about 10, although occasionally i still slip up but very rarely.