title: Patterned auditory stimulation and suck dynamics in full-term infants.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine whether patterned auditory stimuli, designed to mimic the natural burst-pause pattern evident in non-nutritive suck (NNS) with variations to the intraburst frequency, alter infants' NNS and cardiorespiratory patterning.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sixteen healthy full-term infants participated in this study. Infants were fitted with electrocardiogram electrodes and a respiratory belt to measure cardiorespiratory patterning. Infants were offered a custom pacifier attached to a pressure transducer to measure NNS. Prior to the start of the study, a two-minute NNS and cardiorespiratory baseline was attained. Next, three auditory stimulation conditions were presented in the form of sucking clicks at interburst frequencies of 1, 2 and 4 Hz. Each of the three frequencies was played for two minutes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Separate repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed significant differences in NNS burst duration (p = 0.013), NNS cycles/burst (p = 0.010) and NNS bursts/minute (p = 0.005) across auditory stimulation conditions. No significant differences were evident in the cardiorespiratory outcomes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We found that patterned auditory stimulation significantly reduced NNS dynamics and had no effect on cardiorespiratory patterning. The findings further suggest that infants attempted to modulate their suck pattern to the patterned acoustic stimuli by shortening their burst durations with fewer cycles per burst.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Zimmerman
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Foran
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D013391:Sucking Behavior
keywords: Acoustic stimulation; Feeding; Infants; Non-nutritive suck