Quantifying infant physical interactions using sensorized toys in a natural play environment

Abstract

Infants with developmental delays must be detected early in their development to minimize the progression of motor and neurological impairments. Our objective is to quantify how sensorized toys in a natural play environment can promote infant-toy physical interactions. We created a hanging elephant toy, equipped with an inertial measurement unit (IMU), a pressure transducer, and multiple feedback sensors, to be a hand-grasping toy. We used a 3 DoF robotic model with inputs from the IMU to calculate multiple kinematic metrics and an equation to calculate haptic metrics from the pressure transducer. Six typical infants were tested in the gym set-up. Three infants interacted with the toy for more than half the trial time. The youngest infant exhibited the largest toy displacement with ΔD = 27.6 cm, while the oldest infant squeezed the toy with the largest mean pressure of 4.5 kPa. More data on on both typical and atypical infants needs to be collected. After testing atypical infants in the SmarToyGym set-up, we will be able to identify interaction metrics that differentiate atypical and typical infants.

Towards an AI-driven soft toy for automatically detecting and classifying infant-toy interactions using optical force sensors

“…The sensor infused toys are a critical part of these early detection efforts. The CareToy ( Rihar et al, 2016 ) and the SmarToy Gym ( Goyal et al, 2017 )—an early version of the PANDA Gym—are gym systems that both use a sensorized environment plus multiple smart toys to collect a variety of kinematic and kinetic data that are then used to identify predictors of neuromotor delay.…”

“…The Play and Neuro Development Assessment (PANDA) gym is an infant play gym created as a tool for collecting quantitative metrics for detecting impairment in infants as young as 1–6 months ( Goyal et al, 2017 ). Figure 1A shows the current PANDA GYM with an infant.…”

Infants at risk for physical disability may be identified by measures of postural control in supine

“…We have developed and pilot tested an instrumented infant play gym to quantify movement characteristics during natural play in the first year of life 10 , 11 . We now call the gym PANDA—for Play And NeuroDevelopmental Assessment—and are evaluating the potential utility of different measures from PANDA in developmental screening and early detection of infant motor impairment.…”

Hand Use and Grasp Sensor System in Monitoring Infant Fine Motor Development

“…For the past near-decade, the greater part of infant neuromotor sensing technology research has focused on detecting and analyzing patterns of movement, measuring, and modeling the same phenomena as the GMA. 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 The CareToy EU Project that produced an “intelligent baby gym” for home use with infants at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders is the most extensive example of this line of research and development. 18 , 19 , 23 , 24 …”

“…These forces are measured through sensors embedded in toys designed to be visually attractive to infants and shaped to fit easily within their hands. 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 The CareToy uses sensorized toys for measuring grip force as part of a home-based baby gym for treatment and assessment of infants at risk of delay. 23 Sgandurra et al used CareToy to examine typically developing infants with sensorized toys from 18-41 weeks and found an increase in power grip force between 18 and 30 weeks of age followed by a plateau period.…”