Research Express@NCKU - Articles Digest
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Research Express@NCKU Volume 31 Issue 5 - July 7, 2017 [ http://research.ncku.edu.tw/re/articles/e/20170707/3.html ]
Spectrum Analysis of Cry Sounds in Preterm and Full-
Term Infants
Li-mei Chen
1,*, Yu-Hsuan Yang
1, Chyi-Her Lin
2, Yuh-Jyh Lin
2and Yung-Chieh Lin
21 Department of Foreign Languages, National Cheng Kung University
2 Department of Pediatrics, Medical College, National Cheng Kung University leemay@mail.ncku.edu.tw
P
revious studies indicated that crying behavior of full-term and preterm infants show significant different patterns due to immature neurological development of preterm infants. Long-time average spectrum (LTAS) was used to analyze the cry phonation of 26 infants under four months old. Sixteen of them are full-term and the other 10 infants are preterm. The results of first spectral peak (FSP), mean spectral energy (MSE), spectral tilt (ST), high frequency energy (HFE) were used to compare the cry phonation between full- term and preterm infants. Major findings are: (1) Term infants had longer overall cryduration, which corresponded to better respiratory capability to support phonation; (2) There was no significant difference across groups in the percentage of cry utterance; (3) FSP in term infants involved more distinct phases across three partitions, declining toward the end of cry episode; (4) Preterm infants showed higher MSE, which corresponded to tighter laryngeal muscle and intense cry production; (5) There was a quicker reduction of energy with larger ST in preterm infants over time, which revealed hypoadduction of the vocal folds; (6) There was a significant decline of HFE over time in both term and preterm infants. The differences in the measures of crying behavior between full-term and preterm infants can help to estimate health condition of infants who are under 4 months old in order to provide adequate care.
LTAS display showing the location of the first spectral peak (FSP) and high frequency energy (HFE) between 5000Hz and 8000Hz