Hearing and Behavioral Responses to Sound in Full-Term Newborns

Abstract

This article, addressed to clinicians caring for and interacting with newborns, summarizes information from the research literature about newborn infants' hearing and behavioral responses to sound. While the emphasis is on current knowledge, older studies show how the investigators' assumptions have influenced the questions they have asked. Although these studies do not make up a neat package of information for clinicians, they do reveal broad outlines of newborn hearing abilities and the affects of sound on sleeping, quieting from crying, habituating, and paying attention. The newborn's responses to and preferences for particular sounds such as speech, music, and heartbeats are reviewed. These studies present the term newborn as an active listener and learner who, despite a somewhat immature auditory system and a limited repertoire of behavioral responses, is highly discriminating regarding the sounds of speech and whose efforts at sleeping, quieting, and paying attention may be hindered by noise such as that commonly found in hospital nurseries.