Fundamental Frequency Variation of Neonatal Spontaneous Crying Predicts Language Acquisition in Preterm and Term Infants
Open accessAbstract
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.
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Cry analysis can serve as a non-invasive method to analyze the neurophysiological state, often influenced by birth trauma, brain injury or pain stress.
“Cry analysis can serve as a non-invasive method to analyze the neurophysiological state, often influenced by birth trauma, brain injury or pain stress13.”
From Skin-interfaced biosensors for advanced wireless physiological monitoring in neonatal and pediatric intensive-care units (2020) · cites this paper as [13]
The Introduction (page not specified) describes cry acoustics as a non-invasive index of neonatal neurophysiological states, including pain stress, and links abnormal cry frequency to neurological disturbances. It does not specifically identify birth trauma or brain injury as influences, so those examples are not supported by our copy. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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Chung, H. U., Rwei, A. Y., Hourlier-Fargette, A., Xu, S., Lee, K., Dunne, E. C., Xie, Z., Liu, C., Carlini, A., Kim, D. H., et al. (2020) · Nature Medicine · doi:10.1038/s41591-020-0792-9 · Cited by 482 · see citing works
- Authors
- Shinya, Y., Kawai, M., Niwa, F., Imafuku, M., & Myowa, M.
- Affiliations
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JP)
- Kyoto University (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Shinya, Yuta
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2017-12-22
- Volume
- 8
- Pages
- 2195-2195
- ISSN
- 1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5744644
- OpenAlex
- W2778719563
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 56
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 8 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 2.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Kyoto University Research Information Repository (Kyoto University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (24119005, 14J06302)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Infant Development and Preterm Care
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Pharmacy › Infant Health and Development
- Keywords
- infant crying, fundamental frequency variation, melodic features, preterm infants, moderate-to-late preterm birth, very preterm birth, language acquisition, expressive language, cognitive development, prosody
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