Depression Diagnoses and Fundamental Frequency-Based Acoustic Cues in Maternal Infant-Directed Speech.

F0-based acoustic measures were extracted from a brief, sentence-final target word spoken during structured play interactions between mothers and their 3- to 14-month-old infants, and were analyzed based on demographic variables and DSM-IV Axis-I clinical diagnoses and their common modifiers. F0 range (ΔF0) was negatively correlated with infant age and number of children. ΔF0 was significantly smaller in clinically depressed mothers and mothers diagnosed with depression in partial remission, relative to non-depressed mothers, mothers diagnosed with depression in full remission, and those diagnosed with depressive disorder not otherwise specified. ΔF0 was significantly lower in mothers experiencing their first major depressive episode relative to mothers with recurrent depression. Deficits in ΔF0 were specific to diagnosed clinical depression, and were not well predicted by elevated self-report scores only, or by diagnosed anxiety disorders. Mothers with higher ΔF0 had infants with reportedly larger productive vocabularies, but depression was unrelated to vocabulary development. Implications for cognitive-linguistic development are discussed.

Distinct beliefs, attitudes, and experiences of Latino smokers: relevance for cessation interventions.

PURPOSE: Determine the extent to which Latino smokers are using effective interventions for smoking cessation, with particular focus on nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). Related aims were to explore cultural, attitudinal, knowledge, and socioeconomic variables associated with treatment use. DESIGN: Cross-sectional telephone survey of two groups of Colorado adult smokers: Latinos (n = 1010) and non-Latino whites (n = 519). SETTING: Colorado. METHODS: Computer-assisted telephone survey in either Spanish or English. Survey addressed sociodemographic variables; smoking and cessation history; knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about smoking and quitting; and experiences in and attitudes toward the health care setting. PARTICIPANTS: Latino and non-Latino white adult Colorado residents who reported being regular smokers. RESULTS: Colorado Latinos report using NRT substantially less often than do non-Latino whites residing in the state. This and other differences in the study were more pronounced in Latinos characterized as low acculturation on the basis of a language preference variable. Latinos smoke somewhat less than non-Latino whites and report lower levels of dependence. They appear to be motivated to quit but endorse attitudes and beliefs antithetical to NRT use. Health care access was lower among Latinos, and this was related to lower reports of lifetime NRT use. Receipt of recommended practitioner intervention (the "five As") did not differ by ethnicity. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggested that use of effective cessation interventions among Latinos may be enhanced by education about nicotine addiction and NRT. Policy change to increase health care access also showed promise.

Infants of chronically depressed mothers learn in response to male, but not female, infant-directed speech.

Previous research using a conditioned-attention paradigm demonstrated that 4-month-old infants of depressed mothers (a) failed to acquire associations when a segment of their mothers' infant-directed (ID) speech signaled the presentation of a smiling face but (b) did acquire associations when a segment of an unfamiliar nondepressed mother's ID speech signaled the face (P. S. Kaplan, J. -A. Bachorowski, M. J. Smoski, & W. J. Hudenko, 2002). In the present study, 5- to 13-month-old infants of depressed mothers failed to acquire associations when either their own mothers' (Experiment 1) or an unfamiliar nondepressed mother's (Experiments 1 and 2) ID speech signaled a face. However, these infants acquired associations when a segment of an unfamiliar nondepressed father's ID speech served as the signal (Experiment 2). One possible explanation of these results is that infants of depressed mothers selectively "tune out" ID speech from their mothers and from other, nondepressed, women.