Instrumented toys for assessing spatial cognition in infants

Abstract

This paper describes an interdisciplinary approach to the assessment on infants’ behavior, with a focus on the technology. The goal is an objective, quantitative analysis of concurrent maturation of sensory, motor and cognitive abilities in young children, in relation to the achievement of developmental milestones. An instrumented block-box toy specifically developed to assess the ability to insert objects into holes is presented. The functional specifications are derived from experimental protocols devised by neuroscientists to assess spatial cognition skills. Technological choices are emphasized with respect to ecological requirements. An ad hoc calibration procedure is also presented which is suitable to unstructured environments. Finally, preliminary tests carried out at a local day-care with 12–24 months old infants are presented which prove the in-field usability of the proposed technology.

Keywords

inertial-magnetic sensing / in-field calibration / neuro-developmental engineering / ecological assessment

References

[1] von Hofsten C, Rönnqvist L. The structuring of neonatal arm movements. Child Development, 1993, 64(4): 1046–1057

[2] Bhat A N, Heathcock J H, Galloway J C. Toy-oriented changes in hand and joint kinematics during the emergence of purposeful reaching. Infant Behavior and Development, 2005, 28(4): 445–465

[3] Bhat A N, Galloway J C. Toy-oriented changes during early arm movements: hand kinematics. Infant Behavior and Development, 2006, 29(3): 358–372

[4] Welch G, Foxlin E. Motion tracking: No silver bullet, but a respectable arsenal. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 2002, 22(6): 24–38

[5] Kemp B, Janssen A J M W, van der Kamp B. Body position can be monitored in 3D using miniature accelerometers and earth-magnetic field sensors. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 1998, 109(6): 484–488

[6] Ornkloo H, von Hofsten C. Fitting objects into holes: on the development of spatial cognition skills. Developmental Psychology, 2007, 43(2): 404–416

[7] Campolo D, Maini E S. Patane F, Laschi C, Dario P, Keller F, Guglielmelli E. Design of a sensorized ball for ecological behavioral analysis of infants. In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) , Pasadena, California, 2007, 1318–1323

[8] Campolo D, Schenato L, Pi L J, Deng X, Guglielmelli E. Multimodal sensor fusion for attitude estimation of micromechanical flying Insects: A geometric approach. In Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Nice, France, 2008, 3859–3864

[9] Campolo D, Fabris M, Cavallo G, Accoto D, Keller F, Guglielmelli E. A novel procedure for in-field calibration of sourceless inertial/magnetic orientation tracking wearable devices, in Proceedings of the first IEEE / RAS-EMBS Intl Conf. on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BIOROB), Pisa, Italy, 2006, 471–476

[10] Lotters J C, Schipper J, Veltink P H, Olthuis W, Bergveld P. Procedure for in-use calibration of triaxial accelerometers in medical applications. Sensors and Actuators. A, Physical, 1998, 68(1-3): 221–228

[11] Mari M, Castiello U, Marks D, Marraffa C, Prior M. The reach-to-grasp movement in children with autism spectrum disorder. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 2003, 358(1430): 393–403

Acknowledgements

This work was partly supported by a grant from the European Union, TACT (Thought in Action), FP6-NEST/ADVENTURE program (No. 015636) and by the Academic Research Fund (AcRF) Tier1 (RG 40/09), Ministry of Education, Singapore

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg