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INFANT CRYING Theoretical and Research Perspectives \0 sARAi,} z. WtLlv YsU llwAvs. I '-', II c. CI.. r-"'-- fa r- '1 <:J lJ o.l\lJ~: ~\~L~o~'\\ ~ crL1tf\j . 6 ~ Written by 8-year-old Alyssa to her S-year-old sister, Sarah INFANT CRYING Theoretical and Research Perspectives Edited by Barry M. Lester and C. F. Zachariah Boukydis The Children 's Hospital and Harvard Medical School Boston, Massachusetts PLENUM PRESS • NEW YORK AND LONDON Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Infant crying. Includes bibliographies and index. 1. Crying. 2. Infant psychology . 3. Crying-Research. 4. Interpersonal communica tion in children. I. Lester, Barry M. II. Boukydis, C. F. Zachariah. [DNLM: 1. Com munication-in infancy & childhood . 2. Crying-in infancy & childhood . 3. Language Development. WS 105.5.E5 143] BFnO.C78154 1985 155.4'22 84·26414 ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-9455-9 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4613-2381-5 DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4613-2381-5 © 1985 Plenum Press, New York Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1985 A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation 233 Spring Street, New York, N.Y. 10013 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise , without written permission from the Publisher To our fathers, Norman C. Lester and A. Charles Boukydis, and to John Lind, one of the fathers of cry research. Contributors MARTIN BAX, Community Paediatric Research Unit, St. Mary's Hos pital Medical School, London, England LOIS BLACK, Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, Syra cuse, New York C. F. ZACHARIAH BOUKYDIS, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Department of Pediatrics, The Children's Hos pital, Boston, Massachusetts T. BERRY BRAZELTON,Division of Child Development, The Children's Hospital, and Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Bos ton, Massachusetts JENNIFER S. BUCHWALD, Department of Physiology, Brain Research Institute and Mental Retardation Research Center, School of Medi cine, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California RAYMOND H. COLTON, Department of Otolaryngology and Com munication Science, College of Medicine, Upstate Medical Center, State University of New York, Syracuse, New York vii viii CONTRIBUTORS MICHAEL J. CORWIN, Department of Pediatrics, Boston University School of Medicine, and Department of Pediatrics, Boston City Hos pital, Boston, Massachusetts WILBERTA 1. DONOVAN, Infant Development Laboratory, Waisman Center on Mental Retardation and Human Development and Depart ment of Pediatrics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin ANN FRODI, Department of Psychology, University of Rochester, Roch ester, New York JOHN GLEASON, Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, Syr acuse, New York HOWARD 1. GOLUB, Pediatric Diagnostic Service Institute, Cam bridge, Massachusetts ANNA-LIISA JA.RVENPA.A., Department of Neonatology, Children's Hospital, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland LEWIS A. LEAVITT, Infant Development Laboratory, Waisman Center on Mental Retardation and Human Development and Department of Pediatrics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin BARRY M. LESTER, Harvard Medical School and Division of Child Development, The Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts PHILIP LIEBERMAN, Department of Linguistics, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island JOHN LIND, late of the II Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland KATARINA MICHELSSON, II Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland ANN D. MURRAY, High Risk Infant Development Laboratory, Boys Town National Institute for Communication Disorders in Children, Omaha, Nebraska THOMAS MURRY, Audiology and Speech Pathology Service, Veterans Administration Medical Center, San Diego, California CONTRIBUTORS ix JOHN D. NEWMAN, Laboratory of Comparative Ethology, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Insti tutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland PETER F. OSTWALD, Department of Psychiatry, Langley Porter Psy chiatric Institute, School of Medicine, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, California CARL SHIPLEY, Department of Physiology, Brain Research Institute and Mental Retardation Research Center, School of Medicine, Uni versity of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California ALFRED STEINSCHNEIDER, American SIDSInstitute, Atlanta, Georgia CARL-JOHAN THODEN, II Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hos pital, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland OLE WASZ-HOCKERT, II Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hos pital, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland PETER H. WOLFF, Department of Psychiatry, The Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts PHILIPSANFORDZESKIND, Department of Psychology, Virginia Poly technic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia Foreword 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 of human 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 are upset by other matters, 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 interesting phenomenon to others and to understand 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 wondered if their cries were deviant in some other way. Fortunately, several investigators in the past 25years and many more in the past 10 years have pursued this problem. xi xii FOREWORD As might be expected, the number of parameters used to define cries has escalated with improving analyzing techniques. At first, investiga tors studied the cries of infants with known neurological problems, then the cries of infants who were only at known risk for a neurological problem, and now infants considered to have had normal pregnancies and deliveries who might nevertheless have suffered some neurological problem. Thus the possibilities for clinical application have expanded. The chapters in this book on the cries of newborns and young infants amply illustrate the evolution of these important studies, which I think have great promise. In clinical pediatrics, I also discovered that how and when infants' and children's cries were responded to depended as much on the char acteristics of the listener as on the characteristics of the cry. While one might superficially think that all adults would give attention to an infant who cried and also become annoyed when the crying was excessive or strident, I was surprised at the many exceptions to this general wisdom. I followed the development of an infant who cried frequently and pro longedly in the early months of life, whose mother surprised me by her lack of complaints and her true devotion to this child. She expressed her happiness with this infant because she needed her so much. At the other extreme was the mother of a quiet, competent infant who cried very little, whose mother seemed disappointed, saying that this baby did not seem to need her. These extreme cases reflect the mothers' perceptions of their roles and what they attribute to their infants. Several chapters of this book address these important issues. I think this area of research is just getting started and is greatly enhanced by the studies of cry characteristics. We are always limited in our interpretations of the precise role of the nervous system in the particular human behaviors we are studying. We, therefore, need animal models that will permit experimentation with the nervous system's controls over vocal output and reception, and such studies have been included in this book. This is the first book that includes studies of the characteristics of infants' and children's normal and abnormal cries, the reasons for vary ing adult responses, and animal models that might provide further insight into these important subjects. It is an important contribution to this relatively new and exciting field. ARTHUR H. P ARMELE E Los Angeles, California Acknowledgments We would like to thank Joel Hoffman, Kate Neff, and Gaye Hoffman for their help in preparing and editing the manuscripts for this book. Contents CHAPTER 1 Introduction: There's More to Crying Than Meets the Ear. 1 Barry M. Lester 1. Introduction .......................................... 1 2. Some Theoretical Speculations 8 2.1. Crying and States of Arousal 8 2.2. Crying and the Development of Inhibition 11 2.3. Crying