Abstract
Spontaneous cries of infants exhibit rich melodic features (i.e., time variation of fundamental frequency [F0]) even during the neonatal period, and the development of these characteristics might provide an essential base for later expressive prosody in language. However, little is known about the melodic features of spontaneous cries in preterm infants, who have a higher risk of later language-related problems. Thus, the present study investigated how preterm birth influenced melodic features of spontaneous crying at term-equivalent age as well as how these melodic features related to language outcomes at 18 months of corrected age in preterm and term infants. At term, moderate-to-late preterm (MLP) infants showed spontaneous cries with significantly higher F0 variation and melody complexity than term infants, while there were no significant differences between very preterm (VP) and term infants. Furthermore, larger F0 variation within cry series at term was significantly related to better language and cognitive outcomes, particularly expressive language skills, at 18 months. On the other hand, no other melodic features at term predicted any developmental outcomes at 18 months. The present results suggest that the additional postnatal vocal experience of MLP preterm infants increased F0 variation and the complexity of spontaneous cries at term. Additionally, the increases in F0 variation may partly reflect the development of voluntary vocal control, which, in turn, contributes to expressive language in infancy.
Highlights
Crying is one of the few means by which human infants can communicate a variety of emotions, including hunger, pain, and frustration
Post hoc testing using the Bonferroni method revealed that the moderate-to-late preterm (MLP) group had higher values for F0 range (p < 0.001), F0 sigma (p < 0.001), F0 transposition range (p = 0.011), and melody complexity index (MCI) number (p = 0.041) than the term group (Figure 2)
Post hoc testing of the MCDI data showed that the very preterm (VP) group had lower gesture scores than the term group (p = 0.046) as well as lower receptive and expressive language scores than the MLP group (p < 0.001)
Summary
Crying is one of the few means by which human infants can communicate a variety of emotions, including hunger, pain, and frustration. The majority of research investigating infant crying has evaluated acoustic features as a non-invasive index of neurophysiological states during the neonatal period, including pain stress (Stevens et al, 2007) and medical complications (Wasz-Höckert et al, 1985). In line with these findings, the most common acoustic feature of pain-induced cries is that of fundamental frequency (F0); for example, abnormally high F0 values are related to a variety of medical conditions including chromosomal, endocrine, metabolic, and neurological disturbances (Wasz-Höckert et al, 1985). Rather than being a product of a smaller body size, the increased F0 of spontaneous cries in preterm infants may be the result of more complicated neurophysiological states, such as low vagal activity (Shinya et al, 2016), due to their different intra- and extrauterine experiences
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