Treatment for /r/ has long been a struggle for many speech pathologists.  Clients spend years in therapy and treating clinicians’ express frustration with the lack of success in shaping the elusive /r/.  Establishing /r/ shouldn’t bring SLPs or our clients to tears of frustration.  The ‘Why /r/ We Struggling’ method takes the guess work out of how to treat /r/ and provides a step-by-step process for facilitating accurate /r/ production in even the most challenging cases.  It’s possible to get an /r/ on the first day and not struggle for weeks, months and years to shape an approximation into the end product.  This method provides an easy-to-follow procedure for eliciting /r/ in even the most habituated cases.  The /r/ phonemes present a unique interaction of the surrounding phonemes and needs to be treated with specific prompts, cues and contexts that reflect their uniqueness.

Presenter: Jennifer Buckler, M.S., CCC-SLP

Jenny Buckler is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Speech-Language Pathology Program at MWU. Professor Buckler worked for nearly three decades as a public-school speech-language pathologist, providing intervention for children from 2 –18 years of age. She was the speech pathology department lead for the school district for 10 years. She helped start the Speech Language Pathology Assistant Program at Estrella Mountain Communication College, developing curriculum and courses and taught there as an adjunct professor for 14 years. She conducts workshops around the state to help mentor and develop SLP skill sets in the areas of treatment of /r/ and fluency management. Professor Buckler supervises a variety of cases at the Speech Language Institute where she works with students as they develop their clinical skills.