App Tells New and Deaf Parents When And Why Their Baby Is Crying

The ChatterBaby app uses machine learning to analyze babies’ cries

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(LOS ANGELES) – Parents can often tell what their baby needs simply by the sound of their cry. But what if you couldn’t hear your child’s cry? That’s a challenge that deaf parents and live with every day, but a new app could help overcome that challenge.

The ChatterBaby app not only lets deaf parents know when their baby is crying, it also can tell them why they’re crying. “The app analyzes the different types of frequencies that are in the cry and the different patterns of sound and silence,” said Ariana Anderson, PhD assistant professor in residence at the UCLA Semel Institute who spearheaded the development of the app. “For example, if a cry has a long period of silence, it’s more likely that the baby is fussy. If there are constant, high-volume frequencies, it’s more likely the baby is in pain.”

Anderson is a mother of four who got the idea for the app after noticing the variations of cries in her own children. She then collected a database of more than 2,000 infant cries and used machine learning to build the algorithms used in the app.

“Current technology will alert parents when there is a sound coming from a child, but it doesn’t distinguish what type of sound it is,” said Anderson. “This categorizes the cries to tell parents whether the baby is hungry or fussy or, with more than 90 percent accuracy, can determine if a baby is crying because it’s in pain”

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The ChatterBaby app analyzes a baby`s cry to help deaf and hearing impaired parents identify the baby`s needs. Developed at UCLA Semel Institute, the app can determine if a child is crying because they`re in pain with 90 percent accuracy. It can also distinguish cries associated with hunger and general fussiness.

Arianna Anderson, PhD, oversaw the development of the ChatterBaby app at UCLA Semel Institute. Developed primarily for the deaf for hearing impaired, the first-of-a-kind app can not only tell parents when a baby is crying, but can determine why they`re crying.

Delbert Whetter, who is a deaf father of two, helped test a new app called ChatterBaby, developed at UCLA Semel Institute. The app alerts deaf parents when their baby is crying and analyzes the sounds to determine if the baby is crying because he or she is fussy, hungry or in pain.

Deaf parents Sanaz and Delbert Whetter, of Santa Monica, CA, helped test a new app developed at UCLA called ChatterBaby that not only tells parents when a baby is crying, but why they`re crying.

The ChatterBaby app uses machine learning to analyze the frequencies and patterns in a baby`s cries to alert deaf or hearing impaired parents when their child is crying and why. Algorithms help determine if a baby is crying because they are fussy, hungry or in pain.

Ariana Anderson, PhD, is an assistant professor in residence at UCLA Semel Institute and a mother of four, who used her own experiences a mother to create the ChatterBaby app.

Sanaz and Delbert Whetter play with their young son. As deaf parents, the Whetters helped to test a new app called ChatterBaby. Developed at UCLA Semel Institute, ChatterBaby listens for a child`s cry, analyzes it, then alerts deaf or hearing impaired parents if the baby is crying because he or she is hungry, fussy or in pain.

Led by Ariana Anderson, PhD, center, a team of developers work on the ChatterBaby app at UCLA Semel Institute. The app uses algorithms to not only tell deaf or hearing impaired parents when their child is crying, but lets them know why the baby is crying as well.


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