Infant Crying

The cries of infants and children are familiar to essentially all adults, and we all have our own common sense notions of the meanings of various cries at each age level. As is often the case, in the study of various aspects ofhuman behavior we often investigate what seems self­ evident to the general public. For example,if an infant cries, he or she needs atttention;if the cry is different than usual, he or she is sick; and when we areupsetby othermatters, children's crying can be very annoy­ ing. As a pediatric clinician often faced with discussing with parents their concerns or lack of them with respect to their children's crying, these usual commonsense interpretations were frequently inadequate. As this book illustrates, when we investigate such everyday behaviors as children's crying and adults' responses to crying, the nature of the problem becomes surprisingly complex. As a pediatrician working in the newborn nursery early in my career, I knew from pediatric textbooks and from nursery nurses, that newborn infants with high, piercing cries were often abnormal. In order to teach this interestingphenomenon to others and tounderstand under what circumstances it occurred, I found I needed to know what consti­ tuted a high-pitched cry or even a normal cry, for that matter, and how often this occurred with sick infants. Certainly I saw sick infants who did not have high-pitched cries, but I still wonderedif their cries were deviant in some other way.

1 Introduction: There’s More to Crying Than Meets the Ear.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Some Theoretical Speculations.- 2.1. Crying and States of Arousal.- 2.2. Crying and the Development of Inhibition.- 2.3. Crying and Endogenous Oscillators.- 2.4. Developmental Changes in Crying.- 2.5. Clinical Considerations.- 2.6. Parental Perceptions and Feelings.- 2.7. Crying and Soothability.- 3. References.- 2 The Physiology of Cry and Speech in Relation to Linguistic Behavior.- 1. Human Speech and Human Language.- 2. The Breath Group.- 3. Newborn Infants.- 4. The Development of Sentence Intonation.- 5. Learning to Control Intonation.- 6. Overriding the Vegetative Regulatory System.- 7. Speech Production and Respiratory Regulation.- 8. Imitating Intonation.- 9. Study of Linguistic “Base Forms”.- 10. The Range of Fundamental Frequency Variation.- 11. Duration as a Cue to Sentence Segmentation.- 12. Vowel Production.- 13. Concluding Comments.- 14. References.- 3 A Physioacoustic Model of the Infant Cry.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Definitions.- 3. Physioacoustic Model.- 3.1. Overview.- 3.2. Acoustical Component of the Model.- 3.3. Physiological Component of the Model.- 4. Cry Analysis Techniques.- 4.1. Auditory Analysis.- 4.2. Time Domain Analysis.- 4.3. Frequency Domain Analysis.- 4.4. Spectrographic Analysis.- 4.5. Computer-Based Signal Processing.- 5. Preliminary Studies.- 6. Conclusions.- 7. References.- 4 Twenty-Five Years of Scandinavian Cry Research.- 1. Scandinavian Cry Research.- 1.1 Cry Studies in Scandinavia.- 1.2. Auditory Identification of Cry Types.- 1.3. The Cry Analyzer.- 1.4. Physiological Cry Studies.- 1.5. Cry and Mother-Child Interaction.- 1.6. Baby Carriers Increase the Contact between Parents and Children.- 1.7. Singing—An Aid to Parental Attachment.- 2. Sound Spectrography.- 2.1. The Cry Characteristics.- 3. Cry in Newborn Infants.- 3.1. Cry in Healthy Full-Term Infants.- 3.2. Cry in Low-Birth-Weight Infants.- 4. Cry in Various Diseases.- 4.1. Cry in Clinical Diagnostics.- 4.2. Cry in Chromosomal Abnormalities.- 4.3. Cry in Infants with Endocrine Disturbances.- 4.4. Cry in Infants with Diseases and Malformations of the Orolaryngeal Tract.- 4.5. Cry in Infants with Metabolic Disturbances.- 4.6. Crying in Newborn Infants with Asphyxia.- 4.7. Crying in Diseases of the Central Nervous System.- 4.8. Cries in Malnutrition.- 4.9. Cry in Malformation Syndromes.- 4.10. Cry in Twin Pairs.- 5. Summary.- 6. References.- 5 Sound Spectrographic Cry Analysis of Pain Cry in Prematures.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Material and Methods.- 3. Results.- 4. Discussion.- 5. Summary.- 6. References.- 6 The Newborn Infant Cry: Its Potential Implications for Development and SIDS.- 1. The Cry and Health.- 2. The Cry and SIDS.- 3. Respiratory Instability, SIDS, and Behavioral Development.- 4. Purpose of this Study.- 5. Procedure.- 5.1. Infant Groups Studied.- 5.2. Method of Recording Cries.- 5.3. Analysis of Cries.- 5.4. Measures of Infant Development.- 6. Results.- 6.1. Intergroup Cry Comparisons.- 6.2. First-versus Fourth-Week Cry Comparisons.- 6.3. Derived Cry Variables.- 7. The Cry and Neonatal Instability.- 8. The Cry, Neonatal Behavior, and Mental and Psychomotor Development.- 9. The Cry, Respiratory Instability, and Development: Implications for Infants at Risk.- 10. References.- 7 The Communicative and Diagnostic Significance of Infant Sounds.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The Context of Infant Cry Behavior.- 3. The Patterning of Infant Cries.- 3.1. Genetic Anomalies.- 3.2. Growth Factors.- 3.3. Toxic Influences.- 4. Factors That Influence Cry Performance.- 5. Technical and Methodological Considerations.- 6. The Communicative Function of Crying.- 7. Summary and Conclusion.- 8. References.- 8 A Developmental Perspective of Infant Crying.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Developmental Perspective.- 3. The Development of Crying.- 4. Crying and Present Behavioral Organization.- 5. Effects of Previous Development.- 6. Effects on Succeeding Points in Development.- 7. Conclusion.- 8. References.- 9 Perception of Infant Crying as an Interpersonal Event.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Review of Recent Cry Perception Research.- 2.1. Perception of Cries from Different Populations of Infants.- 2.2. Sound Features That Affect Perception.- 2.3. Adult Population Differences.- 2.4. Some Methodological Issues.- 3. Current Research on Adult Perception of Infant Crying.- 3.1. Perception of Crying: Results.- 3.2. Infant Temperament and the Transition to Parenthood: Results.- 4. Toward a Model of Interpersonal Perception of Infant Cry.- 5. Conclusion.- 6. References.- 10 Aversiveness Is in the Mind of the Beholder: Perception of Infant Crying by Adults.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Conceptual Models of the Cry’s Impact.- 2.1. The Cry as an Innate Releaser of Parental Behavior.- 2.2. The Cry as an Aversive Stimulus.- 2.3. The Cry as an Elicitor of Empathy and Altruism.- 2.4. Ontogenetic Considerations.- 3. Studies of the Cry’s Impact.- 3.1. Paradigms, Measures, and Subject Populations.- 3.2. Physiological Arousal to Cries.- 3.3. Annoyance Value of Cries.- 3.4. Sympathetic Responses to Cries.- 3.5. Experiential and Biological Influences on Responsiveness.- 4. Evaluation of the Conceptual Models.- 4.1. The Releaser Model Reconsidered.- 4.2. A Reexamination of the Aversive Stimulus or Egoistic Model.- 4.3. The Adequacy of the Empathy Model.- 4.4. The Ontogeny of Human Parental Behavior.- 5. New Directions for Cry Research.- 6. References.- 11 Physiology and Behavior: Parents’ Response to the Infant Cry.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The Cry as an Elicitor of Caregiver Response.- 3. Infant Development as a Function of Maternal Response.- 4. Stimulus Processing and Physiologic Response to Infant Signals.- 4.1. Receiver Variables.- 4.2. Infant/Stimulus Variables.- 5. Learned Helplessness —A Model of Maternal Response.- 6. Summary.- 7. References.- 12 When Empathy Fails: Aversive Infant Crying and Child Abuse.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The Contribution of Infant Characteristics to Child Abuse.- 3. The Role of Infant Crying in Child Abuse.- 4. Parental Physiological Responses to Infant Crying.- 5. Parental Responses to Premature Infants’ Crying.- 6. Responses of Mothers with Preterm Infants.- 7. Child Abusers’ Responses to Child-Related Stimuli.- 8. Summary and Conclusion.- 9. References.- 13 A Comparative Model of Infant Cry.- 1. Introduction.- 1.1. Relevance of Animal Models to Human Language.- 1.2. Rationale for the Cat Vocalization Model.- 2. Problems of Quantification.- 3. Characteristics of Cat Vocalization.- 3.1. Cat Vocal Repertoire.- 3.2. The Kitten Isolation Cry.- 4. Vocal Learning in the Kitten.- 5. Voluntary Control of Vocalizations in the Cat.- 6. Substrates of Cat Vocal Behavior.- 6.1. Vocal Tract Properties.- 6.2. Neurophysiological Mechanisms.- 7. Similarities between Infant and Kitten Vocal Behavior.- 8. Conclusions.- 9. References.- 14 The Infant Cry of Primates: An Evolutionary Perspective.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Crying in Human Infants.- 2.1. Basic Cry Patterns.- 2.2. Pain Cry.- 3. Vocal Repertoire of Human Infants.- 4. Vocal Behavior of Infant Primates: An Overview.- 5. The Isolation Call of Primates.- 5.1. Prosimians.- 5.2. New World Primates.- 5.3. Old World Monkeys.- 5.4. Great Apes.- 5.5. Primate Isolation Call Structure: Summary.- 6. Inheritance of Isolation Call Characteristics.- 7. Ontogeny of Isolation Calls.- 8. Neural Substrates of Isolation Calls.- 9. Conclusions.- 10. References.- 15 Application of Cry Research to Clinical Perspectives.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Diagnostic Use.- 3. Parental Role.- 4. Normative Cry Study.- 5. Crying as Part of Normal Development.- 6. Constellation of Neonatal Behavior.- 7. Intervention and Anticipatory Guidance.- 8. A Clinical Example.- 9. Conclusions.- 10. References.- 16 Crying: A Clinical Overview.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Crying in the Preschool Child.- 3. Crying at School.- 4. The Diagnostic Value of the Cry—Crying under the Age of Two.- 5. The Toddler-Aged Child.- 6. Crying in the School-Aged Child.- 7. Handicapped Children.- 8. Crying—Its Social Role.- 9. Bibliography.- 17 Epilogue.- 1. References.