DD cannot say her 'R's' - will she grow out of it?

[sevenseas]

Not sure if I should leave her be or if I should intervene in some way. DD is 5yrs old and cannot say her R's, eg she says 'wabbit'. When older DD had a slight lisp at age 3 I was told to see a speech therapist if she still had the lisp when she turned 4 - which she did, so went to see a therapist and it was sorted out (was a v. mild lisp though). This was in Sydney, Australia and I am not sure how to go about things here.

dont hold your breathe about a speedy referral if you seek and get one. We have got ds pulling the correct mouth position shapes to form the sounds in a mirror. he still cant get it right 99% of the time but there is the odd 1% now. Its a hoot and can be turned into a really fun game but you have to be prepares to sit in front of a mirror seek out some instructions about mouth shape position for sound. maybe someone else will have some other advice, but when we were sent to speak thearpist (she thought he was too young to get right these sounds) it took about 6months for the referral. Hence why i am taking matters into my own hands first. if he doesnt make any progress i will seek further assistance.

My DD is 4.5 and she also says 'wabbit', she also says 'T' instead of 'K' and 'G' instead of 'D' so 'Dog' is 'Dod' and 'tigger' is 'tidder'. We saw the Speech Therapist about 3 weeks after we were referred and she told us that the problem with 'R' and 'Th' wasn't an issue and DD would grow out of it, but the 'k' and 'g' was because she had stuck at a development phase (or words to that effect!), and she gave us some games to play with her that emphasised the letters. Since then she has improved immensley.

At that age, ds1 said

W for R
SH for S
S for TH
CH or SH for TR or J

Although he could talk the hind leg off a donkey before the age of two, in complete sentences and using abstract concepts, unfortunately most people could not understand him! By the time he started school his speech was clearer, though he still made the mistakes I've listed. He was also showing awareness of the fact that he was mispronouncing.

By age 7 all that was left was his SH for S lisp, and now, at age 9, he has outgrown all the mispronounciations without any therapy. His teachers were not concerned. They said that if he showed no awareness of this issue, and did not show any improvement over time, they would recommend referal for SALT.

HTH

When she practices saying a word beginning with R ask her to smile as much as she can, she will find it hard to say the letter W and the mouth will automatically use the same muscles as it would do when pronouncing R (iyswim?!)

I would give her another couple of years before worrying about this sound.

/r/ is one of the later sounds to develop and it is normal for some children this age to still have a problem with it.

My ds is 5 and still doesn't quite say his 'R' correctly - more of a 'W'. Recently a strange thing happened when he was trying to say his 'R' properly it would sound with an 'L' so 'Rlabbit'! He seems to have given up now and gone back to what he was doing before this. He also can't say a 'TH' and will say 'Vis' and 'Vat'!!

Hi, thank you for the tips and reassurance. Will try to get her to smile - she doesn't seem to mind having a go at practising her sounds - and won't worry too much about it yet.