MRI: Acquisition of a Mobile Robot System to Support Research on Robotic-Assisted Locomotion and its Effect on Development of Executive Function

该奖项将允许莎伦·斯坦斯菲尔德博士和伊萨卡学院获得仪器，以支持正在进行的对典型发育中的婴儿运动经验影响的研究。有人认为，婴儿的动作，如伸手、爬行和行走，可能对认知和知觉的某些方面的发展很重要。这项研究的目的是a)进一步开发一个移动机器人平台和相关软件，让婴儿通过向婴儿想要移动的方向倾斜来“驾驶”机器人；b)然后在研究中使用这个机器人系统来检查运动经验对正常发育的、会爬行的婴儿的认知发展的影响。如果增强的运动经验导致典型发育婴儿的认知发展增强，这些结果将为未来的研究提供动力，使用机器人系统为患有运动障碍的儿童提供活动能力，如唐氏综合症、发育协调障碍、脊柱裂和脑瘫。患有这种损伤的儿童通常还表现出认知发育迟缓。这项研究可能会导致技术的发展，为独立运动迟缓或有限的幼儿提供行动能力，从而为调节这些认知发展迟缓提供了一条途径。目前研究的假设是，有使用机器人独立运动经验的婴儿比没有这种经验的婴儿表现出更高的认知发展水平。五个月大的婴儿将被随机分配到一个实验组，在每次会话中驱动机器人，或到一个对照组，不驱动机器人。婴儿将完成12个20分钟的课程，随后是一系列任务，包括深度感知、目的-目的、a -not- b和转换任务，这些任务评估与运动相关的认知方面。这项研究的发现将为正常发育婴儿和运动障碍婴儿认知发展的基本机制提供深入的见解，并可能导致一种辅助技术的发明，使运动障碍儿童在日常生活中受益。

This award will permit Dr. Sharon Stansfield and Ithaca College to acquire instrumentation that will support ongoing research into the effect of locomotor experience in typically developing infants. It has been suggested that infants' movements, such as reaching, crawling and walking, may be important for the development of certain aspects of cognition and perception. The purpose of this research is to a) further develop a mobile robot platform and associated software that lets a baby "drive" a robot by leaning in the direction that the baby wants to travel and b) to then use this robot system in research to examine the effect of locomotor experience on cognitive development in typically developing, pre-crawling infants. If enhanced locomotor experience leads to enhanced cognitive development in typically developing infants, these results would provide the impetus for future research using the robot system to provide mobility to children with conditions that involve motor impairment, such as Down syndrome, developmental coordination disorder, spina bifida, and cerebral palsy. Children with such impairments often also exhibit cognitive developmental delays. This research may lead to the development of technology that provides mobility to very young children with delayed or limited independent locomotion, thus providing an avenue for mediating these cognitive development delays. The hypothesis of the current research is that infants who have experience with independent locomotion using the robot will show higher levels of cognitive development than those without this experience. Five-month old infants will be randomly assigned to an experimental group that drives the robot during each session or to a control group that does not. Infants will complete twelve 20-minute sessions, followed by a battery of tasks including versions of a Depth Perception, Means-End, A-not-B, and Switch Task that assess aspects of cognition related to movement. Findings from this research will provide insight into the basic mechanisms involved in the cognitive development of both typically developing infants and infants with motor impairment, and may lead to the creation of an assistive technology that will benefit children with motor impairment in the course of their daily lives.