Robot Assistants for Promoting Crawling and Walking
in Children at Risk of Cerebral Palsy
Effective robotic assistance of infants with or at risk of developing
Cerebral Palsy (CP) has the potential to reduce the significant
functional limitations
as well as the potential deficits in cognitive development.
This project focuses on the development and testing of 1) a sequence
of robotic assistants
that promote early crawling, creeping, and walking, and 2) a model of infant-robot interaction that encourages the continued practice of movement
patterns that will ultimately lead to unassisted locomotion.
Typically developing infants initially learn to crawl through the
generation of spontaneous limb and trunk movements. Early in the
process, these spontaneous movements transport the infant across the
floor. The rewarding locomotory experience drives the infant to refine
the movements to intentional and exploratory skills. Ultimately, the
infant intentionally engages these skills to solve larger problems,
such as obtaining an interesting toy or exploring their environment.
Infants with conditions such as CP lack the muscle strength, postural
control, and motor coordination necessary for these early exploratory
limb and trunk movements to result in locomotion. Without this
positive feedback, the development of the neural pathways for
productive limb use is diminished, which results in delayed or lack of
development of crawling and walking. These limitations in mobility
negatively affect other domains of development such as perception and
cognition, with effects being visible even into adulthood.
Recent Press / Press Materials
Publications
- Xiao, R., Qi, X., Fagg, A. H., Kolobe, T. H.-A., Miller,
D. and Ding, L. (2015) Spectra of Infant EEG within the First Year of Life: A Pilot Study,
Proceedings of the 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS15), Electronically
Published (ThFPoT14.7)
- Ghazi, M., Nash, M., Fagg, A. H., Ding, L., Kolobe,
T. H.-A. and Miller, D. (2015) Novel Assistive Device for
Teaching Crawling Skills to Infants, Proceedings of the 10th
Conference on Field and Service Robotics, Electronically
Published (paper #58).
Physical publication: Ghazi, M., Nash, M., Fagg, A. H., Ding, L., Kolobe,
T. H.-A. and Miller, D. (2016) Novel Assistive Device for
Teaching Crawling Skills to Infants, Springer Tracts in Advanced
Robotics, Volume 113, pp. 593-605. March 16
- Miller D., Fagg, A. H., Ding, L., Kolobe, H.-A. and Ghazi,
M. (2015) Robotic Crawling Assistance for Infants with
Cerebral Palsy, Proceedings of the AAAI Workshop on Assistive
Technologies Emerging from Artificial Intelligence Applied to Smart
Environments, January
- Kolobe T. H.-A., Fagg, A. H., Pidcoe, P., Williams,
P. (2015) Effectiveness of Reward- and Error-Based Movement Learning
in Enhancing Self-Initiated Prone Locomotion in Infants with or
at Risk for Cerebral Palsy.
Proceedings of the The World Confederation of Physical Therapy
Congress. Abstract A-613-0000-03707. Singapore. May. Selected
as a State of the Art Presentation and awarded the Outstanding Platform Presentation Award.
- Kolobe T. H.-A., Fagg, A. H., Pidcoe, P., Brown, D.,
Bulanda, M. and Rauh, L. (2015) Development of prone
locomotion in infants with or at risk for cerebral palsy.
Appears in the Combined Section Meeting Conference of the
American Physical Therapy Association, Indianapolis, February.
- Cox P. J., Kolobe T. H.-A., Fagg A. H. and Schmiedeberg
T. (2015) Prone Locomotion in Infants With Down syndrome using the
SIPPC: A Pilot Study.
Appears in the Combined Section Meeting Conference of the
American Physical Therapy Association, Indianapolis, February.
- Kolobe, T. H.-A. and Fagg, A. H. (2014) The effect of sensor
robotic technology on the development of prone mobility in
infants with or at risk for cerebral palsy.
Journal of Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology (Special Issue: Abstracts of the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine 68th Annual Meeting),
56(5):99
- Kolobe T. H.-A., Fagg A. H. and Ng, Y (2014).
Comparison of the effect of robotic
reinforced movement learning technology on the development of prone
locomotion in infants with and without risk for cerebral palsy,.
Appears in the Annual Meeting of the Child Neurology Society,
Columbus OH, October.
- Kolobe, T. H.-A., Fagg, A. H, Pidcoe, P. and Miller D. (2014)
The effect of robotic reinforced movement learning technology on the development of
prone mobility in infants at low and high risk for cerebral
palsy.
Appears in the Annual Meeting for the Society of Neuroscience,
Washington DC, November.
- Kolobe, T. H. A., Fagg A. H., Pidcoe P., Miller D. and Southerland
J.
(2013) Kinetic-Kinematic Patterns in Acquisition of
Prone-Locomotion in Infants with/out Cerebral Palsy, Proceedings
of the Fourth International Conference on Cerebral Palsy, Pisa,
Italy, October 10-13, OP72
- Catalino, T., Kolobe, T., McEwen, I., and Fagg, A. H. (2012).
Development of Prone Locomotion in Infants Using an Assistive Device, Proceedings of the Combined Sections Meeting
Conference of the American Association of Physical Therapy
Funding Sources
- A. H. Fagg, D. P. Miller, L. Ding & T. Kolobe, NRI-Small: Robot Assistants for Promoting Crawling and Walking in Children at Risk of Cerebral Palsy, NSF National Robotics Initiative, Award Number 1208639 (10/1/12 - 9/30/16)
- T. A. Kolobe, A. H. Fagg, D. P. Miller, P E Pidcoe,
J. A. Stoner, Prone Locomotion in Infants with or at Risk for
Disabilities, National Institutes of Health (8/15/10-8/14/12)
andrewhfagg at gmail.com
Last modified: Thu Jul 13 13:29:16 2017