Researchers at the National Taiwan University Hospital Yunlin have developed an app that can compare crying sounds a baby is making to a database of sounds, and help you understand what the baby wants, according to a story on ibnlive.com.

The developers say the app can listen to a baby’s cries, and within 15 seconds provide an accurate analysis of the baby’s wants and needs 92 percent of the time for an infant two weeks old or less.  The analysis is not quite as accurate as the baby grows older.

The researchers, led by Chang Chuan-yu and Dr Chen Si-da, say the feedback from the app’s users tells them the accuracy of the app is about 85 percent at two months, and even at four months, is still in the 77 percent range.

Dubbed the Infant Cries Translator, the app compares the frequencies of a baby’s crying to approximately 200,000 crying sounds the team has collected from about 100 newborns, and in the analysis of these sounds, the researchers have been able to distinguish differences in the acoustics.

The app is constantly being updated in a Cloud drive, with the latest information and any new patterns found, using the parents’ feedback.  The parents will record their baby’s crying sounds for about 10 seconds, according to Chang, and upload the clip to the Cloud drive.  From there, the analysis of the sounds will be returned to the parents’ phone and the parent will let the app know if the analysis was correct.

The creators of the app say once the baby has passed six moths age, there is little point to using the app because the baby’s environment will have an impact on its wants and needs and the way a baby tries to get them.

But they think it can be a useful tool for parents of infants, especially those who are enjoying their first child.

According to the article, the app is available on iOS and Android through the App Store and Google Play, and costs $2.99.