Advancing the state-of-the-art in child development and autism with precise human movement analysis

这个跨学科的博士学位将通过精确的人体运动分析来推进儿童发育和自闭症的最新技术，以开发和部署定制的轻量级可穿戴传感器，用于自闭症运动特征的生态表征非常年幼的儿童和婴儿。该项目将探索、开发和部署一种新的生态严肃游戏模式，采用适合幼儿的定制轻重量可穿戴设备。数据将从有自闭症风险的儿童中收集，通常是发展中的，以及通过在马德拉进行的全人口出生队列研究，项目团队正在与他们合作。该项目将产生新的技术创新，以解决自闭症病因学理论上的差距，并满足幼儿健康和教育的实际需要，以便在现有方法允许之前识别患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童。这些数据将为我们提供科学和专业的理解，了解该运动在儿童发展中的作用及其对自闭症谱系障碍的具体破坏，为评估和治疗提供可能的新目标。

This interdisciplinary PhD will advance the state-of-the-art in child development and autism with precise human movement analysis to develop and deploy bespoke, lightweight wearable sensors for the ecological characterization of the autism motor signature in very young children and infants. The project will explore, develop and deploy a new, ecological serious game paradigm employing bespoke feather-weight wearables suitable for very young children. Data will be collected from children at-risk for autism, and typically developing, as well as through a whole-population birth cohort study in Madeira, with whom the project team is collaborating. The project will produce new technological innovation to address gaps in theory in the aetiology of autism, and satisfy practical need in early childhood health and education to identify children with autism spectrum disorder before current methods allow. These data will inform our scientific and professional understanding of the role of the movement in child development and its specific disruption in autism spectrum disorder, to provide a possible new target for assessment and treatment.