Our tone of voice is how we communicate thoughts and emotions. It comprises five components. These are pitch, volume, rate of speech, prosody, and word emphasis.

Pitch is how high or low our voice is. Our pitch is driven by how fast or how slow our vocal folds vibrate and is based on our anatomy. Women have a higher pitch and men have a lower pitch. A higher pitch indicates excitement and a lower pitch indicates seriousness or authority. By varying our pitch, we communicate the emotion behind our thought.

Volume is how loud or quietly we speak. A loud voice communicates seriousness, frustration, and even anger. A quiet voice elicits calming or conveys an intimate conversation. We adjust our vocal volume based on the context in which we are communicating.

Rate of speech is how quickly or slowly we speak. When we speak rapidly, we may not be heard or understood. If we speak too slowly, our listener may disengage or view us as boring. We need to use a pace that is comfortable for our listener.

Prosody is the rhythm of our speech, the natural rise and fall of our speech. Using appropriate rhythm makes our speech more pleasant and engaging. Alternatively, a monotone voice lacks this rhythm and sounds flat and uninteresting.

Emphasis is placing importance on certain words or phrases. It helps focus a listener on the key information we wish to communicate. We achieve emphasis by changing our pitch, loudness, and intonation.

Tone of Voice Plays a Key Role

Tone of voice plays a key role in communication. It conveys our emotions and attitudes and helps our listener understand our position on a topic. How we say something is as important as what we say. For example, we can say the word “sorry” with sincerity or sarcasm just by changing the tone of our voice. Tone of voice is also crucial to effective communication. A calm, quiet voice in a tense situation can facilitate understanding, whereas a harsh or excessively loud voice may increase confusion or anxiety. Monitoring and adjusting our tone of voice has a direct impact on our ability to communicate by facilitating or impairing communication.

As occupational therapists, we often emphasize the importance of foundational skills in a baby’s development. One of the simplest, most powerful ways to support that development is through floor time. In Part I of this 2 part floor time series, we will explore how floor time is beneficial for babies.

What is Floor Time?

Floor time is exactly what it sounds like — time your baby spends on the floor, engaging with their environment through play, movement, and exploration. While it might look like simple tummy time or scooting around, what’s really happening is essential brain and body development.

Why does floor time matter for babies? Here are a few key areas of development supported by floor time:

• Motor Skills
  • Gross motor skills: Rolling, crawling, and sitting all begin with strong floor-based movement.
  • Fine motor skills: Reaching for toys, transferring objects between hands, and exploring textures lay the groundwork for later hand skills.
• Sensory Development
  • Babies experience a range of sensations — from the texture of the mat to the feeling of shifting weight.
  • Floor time promotes body awareness, balance, and coordination.
• Cognitive and Social Development
  • Through floor time, babies learn to solve simple problems (like reaching for a toy) and engage in back-and-forth interactions with caregivers.
  • Early play-based social interaction is critical for emotional development and bonding.
• Independence and Exploration
  • Floor time allows babies to take initiative and explore, which builds confidence and independence — key goals in pediatric occupational therapy.

How Much Time?

Start with short, frequent sessions — especially for newborns. Just a few minutes of tummy time, 3–5 times a day, can make a difference. As babies grow stronger and more curious, you can increase the duration and variety of play. Make the most out of floor time.

Create a Safe, Stimulating Space: Use a clean mat or blanket on a firm surface. Add a few safe, age-appropriate toys to encourage reaching, rolling, and visual tracking.

Get Down on the Floor With Them: Engage your baby face-to-face. Make silly sounds, mirror their movements, or play simple games like peek-a-boo. Your presence is their best motivation!

Mix Up Positions: Alternate between tummy time, side-lying, and back play. Each position offers unique benefits for motor and sensory development.

Follow Your Baby’s Cues: Watch for signs of fatigue or frustration. Floor time should be fun and relaxed, not forced.

If your baby avoids tummy time, has trouble lifting their head, seems unusually floppy or stiff, or isn’t meeting milestones (like rolling or sitting), an OT can help guide next steps and provide customized strategies. Come back next week to learn more about the benefits of floor time for toddlers.

When we think of floor time, we often associate it with babies — tummy time, rolling, and reaching. Last week we learned all about why floor time for babies is beneficial. But did you know that floor time for toddlers remains just as important? For occupational therapists, it’s a vital opportunity for toddlers to develop independence, coordination, and emotional regulation — all while having fun on the floor!

What is Floor Time for Toddlers?

For toddlers, floor time means giving them the space and opportunity to move, explore, and interact with their environment in a low-to-the-ground setting. This can involve sitting, crawling, squatting, scooting, climbing, or lying down while playing. It also often includes interactive, child-led play, where an adult joins the toddler at their level to encourage connection and learning.

Why does floor time still matter after babyhood?

Supports Gross Motor Development: Toddlers continue to refine their core strength, balance, and coordination through floor-based movement. Floor play helps prepare the body for more complex tasks like running, climbing, and jumping.

Boosts Fine Motor Skills: Think building blocks, puzzles, or toy manipulation — all of these help toddlers develop the hand strength and dexterity needed for future skills like drawing, feeding, and dressing.

Encourages Sensory Integration: Toddlers are still learning how to process and respond to different types of sensory input. Floor time allows them to explore textures, practice body awareness, and regulate their responses to movement and touch.

Fosters Emotional and Social Development: When adults join toddlers on the floor and follow their lead, it builds connection, trust, and communication. This interactive approach supports emotional regulation, early problem-solving, and expressive language development.

What Does Effective Floor Time Look Like?

It doesn’t have to be complicated! Here are some OT-approved ideas for engaging floor time with toddlers:

• Play Ideas
  • Stacking blocks or cups
  • Crawling through tunnels or over pillows
  • Playing with play dough or textured sensory bins
  • Sorting toys by color, shape, or size
  • Dancing, rolling, or pretending to be animals
• Positioning Matters
  • Squatting to pick things up — great for leg strength and balance
  • Side-sitting and cross-legged sitting — helps develop core and trunk stability
  • Crawling through obstacle courses — builds bilateral coordination and problem-solving

Tips

Follow Their Lead: Let your toddler guide the play. Your role is to scaffold (support) their learning, not direct it.

Keep It Low and Simple: Avoid placing toys on elevated surfaces. Keep things at floor level to encourage natural movement transitions like crawling, sitting, and standing.

Use Natural Materials: Use safe household objects like boxes, cushions, scarves, or wooden spoons to promote creative and open-ended play.

Be Present: Getting on the floor with your toddler shows them you’re engaged. This shared attention is a critical part of social-emotional development.

It may be helpful to seek guidance from a pediatric OT. Early support can make a lasting difference. An OT can help if your toddler:

• Avoids floor-based play
• Has difficulty transitioning between sitting, crawling, or standing
• Struggles with coordination or seems unusually clumsy
• Has trouble focusing during play or becomes easily overwhelmed

Floor time isn’t just for babies — it’s a crucial, engaging way to support a toddler’s motor, sensory, and social-emotional development. By simply joining your child on the floor, you’re helping them build the foundation for a lifetime of movement, learning, and connection.

Summer in Montana is the perfect time for kids to run, jump, and play—but for children with developmental delays or motor challenges, these months can feel frustrating without the right support. That’s where pediatric physical therapy comes in. At MOSAIC Health & Rehab, summer physical therapy helps kids build strength, coordination, and confidence so they can fully enjoy the activities summer has to offer.

From hiking family trails to navigating uneven playgrounds or even just playing tag with friends, summer provides natural opportunities to practice gross motor skills. But without guidance, some children may fall behind or avoid physical activity altogether. Our pediatric therapists design individualized plans that turn summer fun into therapy progress. Through play-based sessions, we focus on improving balance, core stability, and coordination—key skills needed for everything from riding bikes to climbing jungle gyms.

Summer Physical Therapy Activities at Home

We also work closely with families to provide home-based ideas that fit into daily routines. Want your child to strengthen their legs? A backyard obstacle course can double as a therapy session. Working on coordination? Sidewalk chalk hopscotch and pool games are great ways to make progress outside the clinic.

Prepare for the New School Year

Summer is also a great time to prepare for the new school year. Physical therapy now can help children improve their posture for classroom sitting, stamina for walking between classes, and independence on the playground—all of which can contribute to a smoother school transition.

Whether your child is recovering from an injury, navigating a diagnosis like cerebral palsy, or simply needs help catching up developmentally, pediatric PT this summer can make a meaningful difference. Contact MOSAIC Health & Rehab today to learn how our pediatric therapists can support your child’s growth and independence—all while having fun in the sun.

As the winter months come to an end and we all emerge to get those first rays of sunshine, we begin to reap the benefits of being outside. Living in a beautiful place like the Gallatin Valley, nature is all around us, but how do we teach our children about important concepts of leave no trace, wildfire prevention, and basic safety and etiquette in the outdoors? By using social pragmatics. Social pragmatics, also known as social communication or pragmatic language, refers to how people use language in social situations.

You Can’t Teach What You Don’t Know

No one can be expected to remember everything about the outdoors. Before you take your children on the trail, brush up on your own knowledge of the outdoors. The national parks service offers plenty of resources for nature-goers of all skill sets. You can also check your local ranger’s station regarding trail conditions and any recent animal activity.

Focus on One Lesson at a Time

No need to teach everything there is to know about the outdoors before ever setting foot outside. Start with basic safety instructions such as staying on the trail, staying with the group, and always checking surroundings. You can teach some lessons as opportunities arise. How often do we see horses and pack animals on the trail? Not very often. You can save the lesson about horses having the right of way on the trail until you and your child come across one.

Use Social Narratives

Social narratives can be a great tool for children of all ages and abilities to learn about expected and safe behaviors in a variety of situations. A social narrative consists of:

• brief “I” statements that use a shared language between the child and adult
• the “why behind” for a behavior or expectation
• an image or video to model the action

Here is an example of a social narrative for staying on the trail. “When I am hiking in nature, I remember to stay on the trail. Staying on the trail is very important. Staying on the trail keeps me safe and helps protect the plants and animals that live here.”

One of the greatest joys in speech pathology is working with children and families to support communication through unique methods and means that match their goals and their specific needs. Sometimes, that means sharing weeks, months, even years working together to give a child a method of sharing their thoughts, wants, and needs when their body isn’t allowing them to do so in a traditional fashion – when their brain is bursting with opinions and ideas, and their voice isn’t able to share them. Sometimes, this means working through a child’s frustration, fatigue, lengthy insurance processes, starting and restarting, problem solving, and collaborating to get it right. And it is so worth it!

Meet Adalyn

Meet Adalyn, a 9 year old firecracker that I have had the pleasure of working with for the last 5 years. Adalyn has a variety of medical complexities, and when we started together, she had tried many methods of communication that just weren’t fitting. We introduced eye-gaze and with lots  of hard work, we’re learning so much about Addie’s ideas and personality. Early in therapy, there was often discussion of how to get her motivated. What was going to make Addie tick? How could we captivate her attention in therapy? I’m sure we got it wrong 1000 times. I’m certain she wants to yell at us to figure it out, get her the different toy, use a different color. She surely showed me, with many, many eye rolls – sometimes even pretending to be asleep to dismiss me and her distaste for what I had brought.

Eye Gaze Communication

But slowly, Addie let us in, learning to navigate her eye gaze to make choices, accept and reject activities, and let her personality shine. By using multimodal communication, Adalyn is able to use her eye gaze device, body language, modified sign language, and facial expressions to share her world.

She loves chocolate and snacks. She was a mermaid for Halloween. Addie is a total Swifty, but loves some Katy Perry too. She will turn the volume up and up and up to drown out any other work she is supposed to do. She loves to get her hair done and has her dad sending ideas to me so that I can get it right the next week. Addie can participate with her homework to tell her class about her hair tinsel of five colors – because it is “not boring”. She takes turns playing games and tells me she’s done, but certainly not ready to go exercise in physical therapy next.

Adalyn’s communication methods are not traditional. Eye gaze takes a lot of work, coordination, and customization. She is an excellent example of our job as SLPs to match our approaches to the specific child and their needs. I am lucky to be on her team.

Mosaic is unique to have a handful of AAC specialists. They support the evaluation, funding, and support of multimodal communication methods and devices for all ages. We believe in giving everyone access to their voice. We use the support of our physical and occupational therapists to target appropriate access methods, mounting, and motor skills to support communication.