GEARing smart environments for pediatric motor rehabilitation

Abstract

Background: There is a lack of early (infant) mobility rehabilitation approaches that incorporate natural and complex environments and have the potential to concurrently advance motor, cognitive, and social development. The Grounded Early Adaptive Rehabilitation (GEAR) system is a pediatric learning environment designed to provide motor interventions that are grounded in social theory and can be applied in early life. Within a perceptively complex and behaviorally natural setting, GEAR utilizes novel body-weight support technology and socially-assistive robots to both ease and encourage mobility in young children through play-based, child-robot interaction. This methodology article reports on the development and integration of the different system components and presents preliminary evidence on the feasibility of the system.Methods: GEAR consists of the physical and cyber components. The physical component includes the playground equipment to enrich the environment, an open-area body weight support (BWS) device to assist children by partially counter-acting gravity, two mobile robots to engage children into motor activity through social interaction, and a synchronized camera network to monitor the sessions. The cyber component consists of the interface to collect human movement and video data, the algorithms to identify the children's actions from the video stream, and the behavioral models for the child-robot interaction that suggest the most appropriate robot action in support of given motor training goals for the child. The feasibility of both components was assessed via preliminary testing. Three very young children (with and without Down syndrome) used the system in eight sessions within a 4-week period.Results: All subjects completed the 8-session protocol, participated in all tasks involving the selected objects of the enriched environment, used the BWS device and interacted with the robots in all eight sessions. Action classification algorithms to identify early child behaviors in a complex naturalistic setting were tested and validated using the video data. Decision making algorithms specific to the type of interactions seen in the GEAR system were developed to be used for robot automation. Conclusions:Preliminary results from this study support the feasibility of both the physical and cyber components of the GEAR system and demonstrate its potential for use in future studies to assess the effects on the codevelopment of the motor, cognitive, and social systems of very young children with mobility challenges.

Influence of a Socially Assistive Robot on Physical Activity, Play Behavior, and Toy-use Behaviors of Children in a Free Play Environment: A Within-Subjects Study

“…Gradually introducing children to different robot behaviors, rather than all at once is also likely to keep them more engaged with the robot. Kokkoni et al noted that children are more likely to look at the robot if it exhibits unexpected behaviors [32]. Finally, reciprocal behavior from the SAR in the form of verbal or non-verbal social interactions may also be key to keep children interested in the SAR [51].…”

“…Guneysu and Arnrich [31] demonstrated feasibility of using the humanoid NAO robot in one-onone exercise instruction and imitation by children. In another study, the NAO and the Wonder Workshop Dash (a small, wheeled toy robot) were part of a robot-assisted learning environment in a child rehabilitation setting [32]. Two infants and a toddler supported by a body weight support system exhibited complex motor tasks like climbing when following the robots.…”

Introductory Chapter: Data Acquisition

“…Results reported in the literature confirms that the VSN concept enables a low cost, light-weight and easy to use monitoring applications that meets tracking and localization needs of rehabilitation centers. An interesting example is the VSN, which was used to collect data for robot automation in rehabilitation of young children [11].…”

The neuropsychological effects of motor development mediated by technologies in disabled subjects

“…Rogers, J.M., et al (2019) x Buitrago, J. A., et al (2020) x Kokkoni, E., et al (2020) x Cappagli, G., et al (2019) x Lancioni, G. E., et al (2019) x x Pulay, M. Á. (2015)…”

“…It has been observed facilitation in walking, participation and motivation. Kokkoni, E., et al (2020)…”