Apraxia of Speech . Week 16 . "oy"

SOUND: "oy"
PRIMARY WORD(S): toy, boy
ADDITIONAL WORD(S): coin
HAND SIGNAL: "o", "e" (eee) - using your thumb and pointer finger, touch each side of your mouth, as you say "eee" (or, using your pointer and middle finger from each hand, press them on the each side of your lips, as you as you say "eee".

According to Meriam-Webster Dictionary, a "diphthong" is defined as:
1 : a gliding, monosyllabic speech sound (as the vowel combination at the end of toy) that starts at or near the articulatory position for one vowel and moves to or toward the position of another

Basically, a diphthong is two vowel sounds, run together to form one.

I didn't even realize this was named.  I just thought it was two vowels.  But, when you are breaking down, literally, every part of every sound, you learn all sorts of new things.

Diphthongs are hard to learn for any child.  But, a child with Apraxia of Speech - it's immensely harder.  Diphthongs are advanced sounds.  Typically, sounds that won't develop until a child is able to correctly say both the short and long vowel sounds for each vowel.  Ryder can not do this yet.  However, he has the ability to say "out" - a word we were assigned to work on at the beginning of therapy.  On Tuesday, the PCMC Therapist said that she hadn't expected Ryder to say the word (out) correctly - that he would say "oat", or "ought".  However, Ryder can say it (and does often - he loves to go outside!).  Due to his ability to correctly say the "ou" diphthong the Therapist suggested trying "oy".

Surprisingly, Ryder was almost able to say it correctly when first demonstrated and asked.  He tends to add an "h" to the beginning, though.  So "toy", is pronounced by Ryder as "tuh-hoy".  But, every (tiny) bit of progress helps.  Slowly.  It helps.

One-step-at-time.