Affiliations: University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Martin J. Ball, PhD, FRSA, FRCSLT, Department of Communicative Disorders, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, PO Box 43170, Lafayette, LA 70504-3170, USA. E-mail: mjball@louisiana.edu.
Abstract: Objective:This article aims to explore /r/ therapy and the need for an evidence base when choosing which tongue shape to teach in remediation. It also aims to explore specifically Irish-English aspects of /r/ and intervention for /r/ errors. Method:We critically appraise the claim that there are separate consonantal and vocalic /r/s in rhotic accents (over and above the rhotic vowels). We describe the various tongue shapes speakers can adopt to produce the percept of /r/. The implications for therapy of the different tongue shapes are highlighted, and the need for an evidence base emphasized. The small number of studies (instrumental and non-instrumental) that have looked at therapy with /r/ and which have mentioned tongue shape are reviewed. We then describe a pilot study of 200 speech language pathologists that surveyed a range of information about the therapists, the clients, and the tongue shape in therapy for /r/ together with comparative success rates. Main results:The results of the survey demonstrate considerable differences in terms of tongue shape used in therapy and probable difficulties encountered by the respondents in describing /r/ errors. However, several limitations to the survey reported here became obvious. Conclusion:We conclude with an examination of tongue shape used in Irish English and the responses to the survey by speech language pathologists based in Ireland. The need for a revised survey of a greater number of SLTs is highlighted.
Keywords: Rhotic speech errors, /r/ therapy, tongue shape, Irish English
