Speech Therapy: Eureka Approach with the /r/ sound

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Kelly and Sadie discuss the "Eureka Approach" to handling the "R sound" in speech therapy. The Eureka Approach is a way to teach a child to anchor their tongue on their top molars so they have a place to stabilize their tongue during the production of "R".

Sadie will demonstrate how we warm up in therapy by biting on the sides of her tongue so that she gets some good stimulation and knows where the sides of her tongue needs to go. Then she slowly slides the tongue inside her molars and practice syllables such as: Tee Tee Tee

She also makes a production with other consonants such as Dee Dee Dee, Gee Gee Gee, so that she's maintaining and pushing on her molars the entire time so that she's grounding her tongue and knows where her tongue is inside her mouth.

She has also worked hard on the "Blended R" which was her best production of the R Sound and how she was able to start. And she's not allowed to do the syllables with the L or TH sound such as LEE and THE. Because when we do the LEE and TH sounds, the tongue has to let go of the molars, so we don't want her to produce that sound at all.

Sadie is really good at the "GR Blend", and she will demonstrate with the words "grapes" and "grass". And she also worked up to the "TR Blend" with the words "tree" and "track". When she says those words she is concentrating on pushing her tongue to the top molars.

The next production she's working on is the initial R position with the words "rat" and "race". And she's pushing her tongue on the sides of her molars at all times.

Lots of times therapy may get a little boring just saying "R words" so we try to make it fun by playing different turn-taking games such as Connect 4, Guess Who, and Guess Where. You can practice the "Eureka Approach" a lot during "Guess Where". Therapy sessions typically last about 30 minutes.