SALT - My dd says her "r" sound in her throat, not her mouth...

[BooBooChicken]

she is 6 and was referred for speech therapy through her nursery teacher (aged 4). at the time she had problems with f, r, l.

she only had one session and all the letter sounds have now developed except r.

she makes the sound very far back in her throat, like a germanic/gutteral sound, iyswim. it makes her quite difficult to understand.

she can roll her r's, in a scottish way, but this is not the natural r sound she comes out with.

is this something that another appointment with a speech therapist could address?

thanks!

bump

So is she using the back of her tongue to make the sound rather than the front of her tongue, as we would?

Is she difficult to understand?

she's not using her tongue at all as far as i can work out, it's like she is making a growling noise in her throat, sort of a vibrating noise.

does that make ANY sense at all?

and yes, to the untrained ear, she's difficult to understand!

A speech therapist would probably really help her with her R. I've had to learn the Dutch R which is made in pretty much the was you describe (just with the addition of a slight forward movement of the tongue).

The English R is a totally different movement so I think she'll be hard pressed to work it out on her own. My Dutch is said to be almost indistinguishable from a native speaker, the almost being my still-dodgy-after-six-years R...

Yes, I know what you mean. So she is using the back of her mouth rather than the front.

As she is difficult to understand, I would ask for another assessment.

At 6 she is old enough to be seen for therapy if the slt feels this is appropriate. They may, however, feel she needs a little longer to see if the issue resolves itself but at least you will be in the system and should then be automatically contacted fo a review appointment.

Have the other sounds been in place for a while now or have they only just resolved too?

the other sounds have been in place for a while now, about 18 mths.

the r sound was initially coming as w at age 4, which i was told was normal for her age, but now it has transformed again!

do you know if i should i get in touch with the speech therapy unit at the hospital or our gp?

thanks to you both for posting, i have been leaving this in the hope that it would resolve itself but it seems firmly entrenched now, and without professional advice, i am at a loss as to how to help her!

If you have a contact number for a local slt dept, give them a call and they will probably be able to point you in the right direction.

Some departments require a GP referral but many allow you to self refer.

Was she actually discharged previously? If not, it may be easy to just see her as a review patient.

A [w] sound is a normal substitution for a [r] sound and you are correct in saying at age 4yrs, this would be seen as a ''normal immaturity''.

The sound she is making now would be seen as 'disordered' because it would not be expected in the normal course of a child's speech development - this does not mean it is going to be more difficult to treat though.

hmm, i'm not sure if she was discharged as we were referred by her teacher and only had one appointment, where, after an assesment, we were told to let things come naturally, with no inteference.

thnaks so much for your advice, daftapeth. it's very reassuring to know what's what, and what to do next.

It does sound as though she would have been discharged then.

If you still have the contact details for where she was seen, just call there again and leave a message. They'll let you know whether you need to go via your gp or not.

Actually, the school probably have contact details too.

Good luck.