Teaching R the Way I Do – (Part 2)

In the last newsletter, I talked a lot about the necessity for palatal constriction to make a correct /r/ sound. Research using MRI images by Suzanne Boyce in Secord, Boyce, Donohue, Fox and Shine’s book, Eliciting Sounds, shows that to make a correct /r/ sound, there also needs to be pharyngeal constriction!

The MRI of the /ɑ/ (p. 146 Secord et al.) shows excellent pharyngeal constriction as you can see that that the root of the tongue is closing off the pharyngeal area. With the /i/ sound as you can see in the next image, you get a high arched dorsum. You also get a wide tongue with the lateral margins on the back molars leading to excellent palatal constriction. According to Boyce, the vocal tract is narrowed by the blade plus a part of the dorsum. But with /i/, there is no pharyngeal constriction as you can see how open the pharyngeal area is.

Having taught /r/ successfully for years and having no knowledge of pharyngeal constriction, it occurred to me that the success of the facilitating contexts EERGA, EERSHA and EERDA (which I use) has to do with coarticulation. The student is anticipating moving into the /ᴂ/ which is very close to the /ɑ/ pictured here and thus achieves pharyngeal constriction. In fact, Boyce pointed out to me that this is probably the case from the evidence in her chapter that the /ɑ/ probably shapes pharyngeal constriction.

Stephen Sacks
SATPAC Speech

Would you like a free SATPAC Program and free .6 hr. ASHA CEUs? If you are interested in hosting a live summer workshop, contact me at steve@satpac.com

My upcoming workshops are in Baldwin Park, CA May 5, Anaheim May 6 and Elk Grove May 15. Here is the link: https://satpac.com/sacks-workshops/

Because I want SLPs from all over to use and understand my program, I have a .6 CEU ASHA webinar that is basically the same as my live presentations. Go to the SATPAC website for details. Here is the link: https://satpac.com/workshops/webinar

The are two 3 hr. webinars (Using the SATPAC Approach with Highly Unintelligible Middle School Students and The 7 Stages of Phoneme Development) available for viewing. As always, you can earn ASHA CEUs. Each webinar is $49 or $79 for both.