This would change lives!
There isn't a parent alive who wouldn't jump at the chance to understand what their baby is screaming about...
New parents often find themselves at breaking point when their little one is upset and just want to know how to help.
And help is something that could soon be on the way, thanks to a team of researchers from Northern Illinois University who are building an algorithm to recognise and translate different baby cries.
“Like a special language, there are lots of health-related information in various cry sounds. The differences between sound signals actually carry the information.
“These differences are represented by different features of the cry signals.
“To recognise and leverage the information, we have to extract the features and then obtain the information in it,” Prof Lichuan Liu of the study told Science Focus.
While every baby's cry is different, the research has found that there are common sound patterns among infants. Such as the 'neh' sounding cry to indicate hunger and the 'eh' cry to indicate gassiness.
And its these common sounds that the researchers are using to hopefully decipher the rest of the baby language.
“The ultimate goals are healthier babies and less pressure on parents and caregivers,” said Liu.
“We are looking into collaborations with hospitals and medical research centres, to obtain more data and requirement scenario input, and hopefully we could have some products for clinical practice.”
Here's hoping the fruits of their labour arrive sooner rather than later!
