Human Research Coordination

The overall goal of this project is to design a portable motor rehabilitation environment for pre-school children (age 6 months to 3 years) with mobility impairments. Children in this environment will be motivated to participate in games that involve physical activity through the use of a body weight support system (BWSS) and through interaction with palm-sized toy robots. We plan to collect video and electroencephalography (EEG) data to monitor the child’s physical and brain activity. The child will be receiving cues through the robots’ motion, with the ultimate goal to maintain her engagement in the gameplay, and physical activity, at high levels. Data from wireless EEG cap collected during the optional final session with the child will record brain activity during gameplay and will give the investigators real-time feedback in terms of the efficacy of the robotic social intervention. This project will increase the knowledge in a number of fields: human-machine interaction (infant EEG signal processing and visualization), robotics (new architectures for automatic robot swarm control with human in the loop), computer vision and state estimation (extracting dynamic motion information from video), and pediatric rehabilitation (obtaining quantitative rehabilitation metrics and data, and offering rehabilitation methods that permit social interaction with peers).

Mobility Impairment group:
Inclusion criteria: (i) age between 6 months and 3 years; (ii) diagnosis of mobility impairment; (iii) medical provider’s clearance form completed/signed for study participation; (iv) body weight less than 50lbs; (v) head control / maintain head in upright position.
Exclusion criteria: (i) vision or hearing problems that prevent the child from seeing the toys or following verbal instruction; (ii) motor impairment of severity that would make any execution of training maneuvers impossible; (iii) body weight in excess of 50lbs; (iv) seizure disorder; (v) contraindications (e.g., severe discomfort, skin irritation, etc.) to harness wearing, either indicated by the child’s physician or observed in session (vi) any other general health issues indicating inability to participate in our study.

Typically developing group:
Inclusion criteria: (i) age between 6 months and 3 years; (ii) not yet walking; (iii) medical provider’s clearance form completed/signed for study participation; (v) head control / maintain head in upright position.
Exclusion criteria: (i) non-correctable vision or hearing problems; (ii) seizure disorder; (iii) severe motor impairment or medical conditions that would inhibit the execution of training regime.

Contact via email:
Dr. Bert Tanner: btanner@udel.edu
Dr. Cole Galloway:
jacgallo@udel.edu
Kleio Baxevani:
kleiobax@udel.edu