Speech Therapy Question- Treatment of vowels in vocalic r?

Question

Any speechies out there?

I have a 4y 4m boy I recently assessed using the HCAPP. Aside from inconsistent voicing of /k/ and /b/ in WIP, and yellow->lellow the only other thing he did was mispronounce the vowels with vocalic /r/'s:

fork-> ferk
horse-> hersi
star-> stir
car-> ger

It's the vowels here that are in error but ONLY with vocalic /r/. I'm tempted to say therapy is not indicated, I wanted to put this out there to you for your opinion. The HCAPP indicated a severity level of low mild and his total occurrences of major phonological deviations was 6.

Opinions?

Answer 1

I would err on the side of caution and recommend therapy for the boy, simply because of the errors in vowel disturbance. The inconsistency in the voicing of /k,g/ and /b,p/ is disturbing, as well.

As you may know, all these problems suggest auditory processing issues, which can have a huge effect on learning to read and spell. As the child is 4y 4m, there is time to address these problems prior to starting kindergarten, when pre-reading skills are formed.

I believe you may be able to do a "quick fix" with this child by training his ear. It shouldn't take more than 3 or 4 months, at most, especially in a group of 2 or 3. (maybe less if 1:1)