Why do a deep r screening?

Updated 1/23

Why do a deep r screening? An effective speech therapy intervention for the /r/ sound begins with a deep r screening. Why? The American English /r/ phoneme varies according to the sounds that proceed and follow the /r/ sound. So, if you are you only screening for the /r/ in the initial, medial and final positions of words, (as you may do with other consonants), you might be missing some stimulability targets for your students, like r blends or a vocalic r. Actually, a deep r screening is a great tool for evaluation, interventions and when considering dismissal.

Click on the image below to see my deep R screener in my TPT store!

A deep r screening for evaluation:

Traditional articulation tests do their job-to assess all consonants but the r is a special animal and you need a tool devoted to all the possible phonetic contexts if you want to do it justice. Don’t jump into an /r/ intervention without first doing a deep r screening. For example, if you are starting intervention with the prevocalic /r/ without first doing a deep /r/ screening, you might be missing another valuable intervention target for your students and risk prolonging intervention time. I have found more students stimulable first to the gr and cr/kr blends and also to the vocalic er. I’ve learned not to jump right into intervention without first doing an /r/ screening with my student. If a student can make an unstressed final vocalic er, it also gives me direction for an intervention technique for the prevocalic r, such as coarticulation. I can have the student move from:

waterrrr to red.

A deep r screening during speech therapy also provides ideas for what r sounds to cover during an iep year. It provides valuable information for writing IEP goals and objectives for the r sound. Bonus! Producing an r sound succesfully helps the student establish correct motor patterns and accelerates the intervention process!

This deep r screening tool can be used by brick and mortar therapists or teletherapists! If you have access to a computer or Ipad during your screening, display the picture stimuli on it! All you will need to print out is the response forms (2 choices) or fill in the response forms digitally using the fillable text boxes in adobe. Do you hear the trees all breathing a sigh of relief?

A deep r screening for progress monitoring:

A deep r screening is not just for evaluations! It can be a tool to use to progress monitor gains with the r sound over an intervention cycle. My deep r screening has two boxes for each target word, so you can use it for evaluation and progress monitoring of the r sound.

Remember, you can always give portions of the screener. Do you have a student that’s just not progressing with the r blends? Maybe it’s not a good use of time to work on ALL the r blends. Give your student the r blends portion of the screening to see if they are stimulable to producing a certain blend. Build your therapy approach starting from this blend. I LOVE therapy materials that don’t group all the blends together. I’m ecstatic when I find a material that devotes one whole page to just one blend!!

Are you looking for RTI materials for the r sound? You might like this post.

I like a screener with pictures, don’t you? If I have a student who can’t read a written word, I may have to read it for them! When I do that, I don’t get a true idea of whether the student can produce the word without a model.

A deep r screening for dismissal:

Considering dissmissal? Yippee! A deep r screening is also important for students that have been working on the /r/ sound and you are considering them for dismissal. Why? You might be missing some phonetic environments that are still difficult for the student. If I have an older student that required prolonged intervention to to master the vocalic r sounds, I’m not dismissing that student until I know they can also produce words that contain w,r and l, like “world.”

So, next time you get a referral for the /r/ sound, be sure to start with a deep r screening tool!