# Caregiver Cry Perception and Developmental Trajectories of Infant-Caregiver Interactions Involving Cry as an Early Marker of Autism

> **NIH MH F32** · UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA · 2026 · $79,348

## Abstract

Project Summary
Caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorders often recall differences in their children as early as
infancy, despite most children with autism being diagnosed after age 3. Caregiver recall of behavioral
differences in infancy indicates that there is more to learn from the earliest developmental periods of children
later diagnosed with autism that could ultimately contribute to earlier screening and earlier interventions.
Understanding the prodromal period could identify sources of heterogeneity in autism phenotypes, such as
social communication deficits and delayed language, which are highly variable and predictive of long-term
outcomes in the autism population. Investigating emerging communication processes is an important domain
to focus on in early development. Infant cries are part of the earliest communicative exchanges for humans.
Cry characteristics impact caregiver perceptions and responses to their infants and thus may impact early
communication development. Differences in cry acoustics associated with later autism diagnoses have been
observed as early as 6 months, and caregivers have perceived autism-related differences in cries from
infants as young as 1-month of age. These findings support cry acoustics as an early risk marker of autism.
Aim 1 will replicate and extend the association between caregiver cry perception and autism outcomes to
aid in identification of the objective acoustic features driving the perceptual differences , requiring collection
of new caregiver ratings of cries from an existing library. Aim 2 will consist of detailed analysis of existing
daylong recordings to capture a phenotype of social contingency development through analysis of caregiver-
infant turn-taking involving cry over the first 12 months of life. The project will utilize recordings collected at
1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months in children with and without autism. In addressing these aims and preparing for a
career as an independent investigator, the 

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11308722
- **Project number:** 5F32MH134481-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA
- **Principal Investigator:** ERIN MARIE ANDRES
- **Activity code:** F32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** MH
- **Fiscal year:** 2026
- **Award amount:** $79,348
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2024-04-01T00:00:00 → 2027-03-31T00:00:00

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11308722

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11308722, Caregiver Cry Perception and Developmental Trajectories of Infant-Caregiver Interactions Involving Cry as an Early Marker of Autism (5F32MH134481-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-19 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11308722. Licensed CC0.

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