My child is 8 years old. He seems to understand and speak like other children apart from the fact that he still says /w/ instead of /r/. I did speak to a speech and language therapist about this when he was younger and she said that my child would probably grow out of it. I am beginning to think that this should have happened by now. I have also noticed that he sometimes confuses /r/ & /w/ when writing words. I don’t want to give my son a complex, but it there something that I can do to help him learn to say these sounds.

Hi Rachel,

This is a common problem. Often the development of the /r/ sound is one of the last to come for many children, and usually it is pronounced as a /w/. Although some children develop it later, by 8 years old I really would expect your child to be using the /r/ sound correctly.

It is interesting, although not surprising, that he makes the same mistake with written work. He may actually have some difficulty discriminating between the 2 sounds.

Our website will be providing a lot of activities for speech difficulties, but they are still currently being developed. I would suggest you consult a speech and language therapist / pathologist anyway, as these problems are easier to fix when your child is still young.

In the short-term, try and create some fun games that you can do with your son to work on his discrimination. One of the best ways to do this is to use minimal pairs, 2 words that rhyme, but have your target sounds at the beginning. For instance:

words such as ring and wing , or rock and wok are minimal pairs. Find some pictures of these items and then present them to your child, say the words, and see if he can distinguish between the /r/ and the /w/ sounds and point to the right pictures.

Get him to look at your mouth shape when you make the sounds so he can see the difference there as well.

Get a list of words beginning with /r/ and /w/ and read them out, but ask him to say whether they start with /r/ and /w/.

These are just a few of the activities you can give him to discriminate between the sounds. This will help him with his spelling and prepare him for any speech activities.

We hope to have some speech and literacy activities on our site over the next few months, and we will let you know when that happens.

I hope that helps Rachel.

Regards icommunicate team

Thank you for the advice

I tried the suggested minimal pairs activity, and he responded well to it. At first he was still unsure, but became more confident with time and could choose the right one when I said the word, and his teacher has noticed that in his writing there is less confusion. However during normal speech when not playing the game, he still confuses the words when he is speaking (although less often than before). Will this discrimination gradually dissapear?

Hi Rachel,

I would keep practicing with him to make sure that that he really hears the difference between /r/ and /w/. Start practicing the different sounds and discriminating between the 2. It might take a little time to get the sound right because he has never really used it in speech.

Use a mirror and get him to look where you place your tongue when making the /r/ sound. When you think he can make a good /r/ sound start to practice some simple words beginning with /r/.

It might be worth seeing a speech therapist for one session just to give you some pointers on what speech activities you can try at home.

I hope that helps Johan