Working on this theory, researchers at Brown University and Women & Infants Hospital have developed a tool that analyzes babies' cries.
"Slight variations in cries, mostly imperceptible to the human ear, can be a 'window into the brain' that could allow for early intervention," Brown University said.
The new tool will perform "finely tuned acoustic analyses" of babies’ cries.
"With the tool, the team hopes their baby cry analyzer will lead to new ways for researchers and clinicians to use cry in identifying children with neurological problems or developmental disorders," the university said.
Stephen Sheinkopf, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown, who helped develop the new tool, said babies' cries contain subtle clues to their condition.
He said birth trauma or brain injury stemming from complications in pregnancy or birth, or extremely premature births can have ongoing medical effects.
"Cry analysis can be a noninvasive way to get a measurement of these disruptions in the neuro-biological and neuro-behavioral systems in very young babies,” he said.
Sheinkopf said he plans to use the tool to look for cry features that might indicate autism.
“We’ve known for a long time that older individuals with autism produce sounds or vocalizations that are unusual or atypical. So vocalizations in babies have been discussed as being useful in developing early identification tools for autism. That’s been a major challenge. How do you find signs of autism in infancy?” he said.
The cry analyzer breaks down recorded cries into 12.5-millisecond frames, and analyzes each frame using at least 80 parameters.
“It’s a comprehensive tool for getting as much important stuff out of a baby cry that we can,” said Harvey Silverman, professor of engineering and director of Brown’s Laboratory for Engineering Man/Machine Systems.
Silverman and his graduate students Brian Reggiannini and Xiaoxue Li worked with Sheinkopf and Barry Lester, director of Brown’s Center for the Study of Children at Risk, on the project.
Lester, who studied baby cries for years, says this research may trace its roots to the 1960s with a disorder called Cri du chat (cry of the cat) syndrome.
Cri du chat stems from a genetic anomaly similar to Down syndrome, and babies who have it have a distinct, high-pitched cry.
“The idea is that cry can be a window into the brain,” Lester said.
“Cry is an early warning sign that can be used in the context of looking at the whole baby,” he added. — LBG, GMA News
source: gmanetwork.com
