<<<"Actually, there have been studies which assessed the 'emotional or psychological impact on the developing child' of controlled crying">>>
Lets take a look at these studies....
<<<”The most controversial aspect of behaviour modification studies is recommending that families leave their infants to cry while “learning” to fall asleep alone. This study found no differences in mean hours of crying between the intervention and control groups.”>>>
Actually, this is exactly what I was talking about... the study focused exclusively on the outcome... amount of sleep/crying involved... NOT in the safety or potential risks associated with the method itself. The conclusions of the study were that controlled crying "improves sleep performance at 6 weeks of age". (six weeks???) Comparing "hours of crying" really doesn't say anything about the health of the child.
<<<”Before intervention, the sleep-disturbed children were rated as more insecure than a matched comparison group with unknown sleep behaviour. This difference was eliminated after the interventions. The more anxious the children were rated before intervention, the more they tended to benefit from it.”>>>
This study was performed solely on the basis of parental observation... in other words, how did the parents view the situation before and after. (Sleep diaries, visual analogue scales (VAS) on daytime behaviour and the Flint Infant Security scale, completed by parents, were used as instruments. Parents also completed VAS scales and the Swedish Parenthood Stress Questionnaire scales on their own well-being.) This does not address the question of long-term damage or other potential risk factors, it is more of a "customer satisfaction survey" than a study on the safety of the method. "Do you think your child did better after CIO? Yes." (sleep diaries, FIS scale) "On a scale of 1-10, does he seem more or less anxious to you?" (VAS scale) "Were you happier after CIO? Yes" (Swedish Parenthood Stress Questionaire) There were no medical or psychological tests administered by health professionals to assess infant health.
<<<"There was no evidence of detrimental effects on the treated infants whose security, emotionality/tension, and likeability scores improved.">>>
"Measured and compared the behavior characteristics and security scores of 35 infants (6-24 months) treated with extinction for sleep disturbance with those of 13 untreated and 15 normal sleep controls."
Aside from being statistically insignificant due to such a small study group with such a wide age range ( a 6mo is a lot different than a 2yo!), consider the criteria listed. "Likeability scores"? In other words, they are looking for OUTCOMES, is sleep training doing what we want it to do... it does not address the potential risks involved. Babies in this small study slept better, were happier, more "likeable", and didn't show any obvious outward signs of major issues. This does not measure anything medical... no measuring hormone levels, no heartrate or breathing monitors, no medical work-up of any kind, just "they look ok, so it must not be doing any damage". The same could be said of giving a baby a sedative to help them sleep... odds are they would get the same results... but at least then the idea of risk would be addressed. (this sedative could have "x" negative side effects, must be taken in this dosage, if your child has "x" reaction notify your physician)
There are NO well conducted, controlled medical studies that show the physical and psychological effects of extended or long-term crying in infants of any age. Related studies do point to the potential of long-term psychological issues from this kind of crying due to documentable physical changes in the brain.
Another thing to consider, the definition of "CIO" is very subjective. Dr. Weissbluth recommends letting babies cry indefinitely (4 hours or more) *unattended* until they stop. The studies listed here describe "controlled crying", specifically checking on babies every 5, 10, 15 minutes with a definite limit to the crying. There is no way to compare the two variations of this method and assume they will have the same outcomes when they are essentially different. A child who is attended to frequently is going to be at a much lower risk of attachment issues than one who is left unattended to cry for hours, or for long periods every night for weeks.
