Contingent mother's voice intervention facilitates attention in hospitalized preterm infants with neural insults

Neurologic insults in infancy can have significant long-term effects on developmental processes including attention and learning; however, heterogeneity of diagnoses and treatments in this population often lead to exclusion from interventional trials to improve outcome. This study sought to determine whether hospitalized infants with neural insults have the capacity to attend to and engage in an intervention leveraging recorded mother's voice contingent on non-nutritive suck (NNS). Eighty-four hospitalized infants with neural insult were randomized to receive 20 sessions of intervention (recorded mother's voice contingent on NNS) or control (passive exposure to recorded mother's voice). Pause time between suck bursts was 29% lower for infants receiving contingent mother's voice compared to passive exposure (p<.001). Hospitalized infants with evidence of neural insult have the capacity to engage in active interventions leveraging recorded mother's voice and demonstrate greater attention during active versus passive presentation of stimuli. Clinical Trial Registration: NCT03230032.