I-Corps: Programmable pediatric motor activity center for children with disabilities

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a rehabilitative toy for infants and young children with motor delay and/or impairment. In the United States about eleven percent of infants (> 500,000) are born prematurely and the premature birth rate in the U.S. has risen by more than thirty percent in the last 25-years.

Prematurity is associated with health and developmental disabilities, including motor delay. Early intervention typically involves using toys to encourage infants to interact with the environment and to practice balance control. Parents often search for toys that are developmentally appropriate for their children.

One problem with the currently available toys is that those that are functionally accessible to infants with motor delay/impairment tend to be under-stimulating when motor delay is not accompanied by cognitive impairment. The proposed design is an automatized, personalized, programmable pediatric activity center for the home or clinic that promotes balance control and object exploration in infancy and early childhood.

This I-Corps project is based on the development of a pediatric activity center for the home or clinic that promotes balance control and object exploration in infancy and early childhood. Informed by research suggesting that direct physical exploration of the environment during infancy has cascading effects for development, this technological method balances motor and cognitive demands that are matched in toys developed for typically-developing children, but may be mismatched in infants with developmental delays.

One advantage of this new method is that it automates the toy presentation to both foster motor activity and free up caregiver resources so they can offer additional support. A second advantage is that the components of the activity center can be custom-programmed so that they can become increasingly challenging, matching the child's changing skills.

Infants with motor delays lack the typical experience of interacting with the world which puts them at an academic and social disadvantage because early interactions with objects impact later cognitive, language, and social development. However, early intervention and developmentally-appropriate play have the potential to change the developmental timeline and learning trajectory and minimize negative outcomes.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.