October 23, 2026
Prosody
The Secret to Imitation
I spend much of my time thinking about helping language-delayed children find their voice. This week my attention is focused on what caregivers do to help build their children’ s language skills. A frequently overlooked strategy is how we use our own voices. Unless you have a background in the performing arts or public speaking, you don’t necessarily use your voice in different ways. One of the ways is prosody. Prosody is the rhythm and melody of spoken language, and helps children pay attention and learn a new language. Children love when adults use prosody! A common way is through Parentese, a term coined to encourage using our voice in a sing-song way.
As I was working with one of my two year old friends. I modeled using parentese by changing my prosody and magic happened. She imitated the phrase “I see green” when picking up a green pom-pom from her pom-pom popper that I brought to the session. Mom was pleased and surprised, as her daughter is using mostly single words. The secret is prosody! I encouraged her to vary her pitch and my little friend responded to her change in voice.
I like to think of prosody as the “enthusiasm” of speech. Like the picture of my daughters jumping with enthusiasm in my post image, let’s learn to find our voice.
Let’s communicate with the enthusiasm of prosody using our voices to create anticipation and fun!