The relationship between oral language and storytelling prosody in preschool children

Abstract

The study examined storytelling prosody (i.e., prosodic variations in retelling a story) and the relation with oral language in Taiwanese preschool children. One hundred and twenty‐eight preschool children aged 4 and 5 were recruited and given the following tasks: nonverbal intelligence, vocabulary, syntax, and storytelling prosody. Children's storytelling prosody was evaluated by a four‐point scale (i.e., expression‐and‐volume, phrasing, smoothness and pace). Results revealed that (i) storytelling prosody differed as a function of oral language, (ii) different dimensions of storytelling prosody (e.g., expression‐and‐volume and phrasing) were correlated with syntactic and vocabulary knowledge and (iii) language production predicted storytelling prosody in male children, but not female children. Together, oral language is correlated with storytelling prosody among preschool children, especially male children. Highlights This study examined the relationship between oral language and storytelling prosody. 128 preschool children's storytelling prosody was evaluated via a rating scale. Storytelling prosody differed as a function of oral language and was correlated with vocabulary and syntactic knowledge. Oral language only predicted storytelling prosody in male children, but not female children. Results highlighted the relationship between oral language and storytelling prosody, which is an early predictor of reading comprehension.