The apparent link of music to speech is because of a trait calledprosody, which seems to be a separate skill, also impacted by NF1.In linguistics, prosody is the difference between speaking in amonotone compared with adding expression by varying pitch,loudness, duration, stress and rhythms. People exaggerate theprosody in their speech when talking to young children because ofthe impact dynamic expression has on comprehension andengagement. Those with the NF1 disorder, most of whom suffermusical challenges, often don’t perceive prosody in speech. Thatsuggests that our fully functioning NF1 gene also helps us withprosody.