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

F-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. F range (ΔF) was negatively correlated with infant age and number of children. ΔF 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.