Evaluating the rehabilitative potential of tactile number expressions for multisensory vision and hearing loss using wearable haptics

项目摘要：先天失明并伴有听力损失的儿童(聋哑儿童)通常 由于他们的多感官丧失而经历严重的语言延迟。这些延误通常会导致 错误地将这些儿童识别为发育迟缓并随后产生负面影响 干预、康复和教育努力。提供早期的、可理解的语言可能会解决这个问题 通过搭建早期认知发展的脚手架来解决。然而，目前的康复方法具有极大的 有限的成功。现有的干预措施依赖于在儿童接触的对象之间建立关联 (例如，鞋子)和特定的功能活动(例如，外出)。这种方法缺乏语言上的 早期认知发展所需的结构。只有在儿童后期，干预才开始使用视觉 手语和/或口语。这种方法带来了两个主要问题：第一，这两个问题都没有 聋盲儿童完全可以接触到各种语言。其次，当语言被引入时，许多孩子 已经过了可以有效习得语言的年龄(即语言的关键期)。 因此，只有少数聋盲儿童获得有效的沟通并达到年龄-- 适当的认知和日常生活里程碑。直到最近，还没有一种完全可理解的语言供聋人使用 孩子是存在的。Protactile是一种完全触觉的语言，最近在失聪的成年人中发展起来。这 研究工作的重点是衡量Protact作为聋盲早期语言的能力 孩子们。失聪的成人Protact专家将使用Protact Multiple与聋盲儿童玩耍 每周一次的纵向研究。我们将使用数字语言来衡量干预的效果。 数字语言是一个很好的索引，因为它提供了一组有针对性的词汇表项目来 测量，与认知发展直接相关，并具有基于非语言感知的能力，具有 通常在发育中的婴儿中发现。这项研究的具体目的是：(1)干预：确定哪些 聋盲成人产生的触觉数字表达是聋盲儿童学习的，(2)原型 开发：开发一种聋盲儿童佩戴的触觉设备，可以轻拍和挤压，并 还测量心率模式，以及(3)非语言评估：使用可穿戴设备和心脏 频率模式，我们将演示聋盲儿童是否感知不同数字之间的差异 指由该设备产生的水龙头或挤压物。我们预计聋盲儿童会表达蛋白触觉数字 我们的触觉测量将显示出类似于典型发展中的儿童的非语言能力。 该项目将产生关于在早期干预中使用Protactile的证据，支持 聋盲儿童早期发育里程碑的实现及其对长期素质的影响 生活的一部分。此外，成功的完成将有助于发展非语言的认知测量 适用于聋盲儿童和其他视力测量不合适的儿童。

PROJECT SUMMARY: Congenitally blind children with co-morbid hearing loss (DeafBlind children) often experience severe language delays due to their multisensory losses. These delays often lead to misidentification of these children as Developmentally Delayed and subsequently negatively impact intervention, rehabilitation, and educational efforts. Providing early, accessible language may address this issue by scaffolding early cognitive development. However, current rehabilitation approaches have extremely limited success. Existing interventions rely on establishing associations between an object the child touches (e.g., shoes), and a specific functional activity (e.g., going outside). This approach lacks the linguistic structures needed for early cognitive development. Only in later childhood do interventions begin to use visual sign language and/or spoken language. This approach poses two major problems: First, neither of these languages is fully accessible for DeafBlind children. Second, by the time language is introduced, many children are past the age at which language can be effectively acquired (i.e., the critical period for language). Consequently, only a small number of DeafBlind children acquire effective communication and achieve age- appropriate cognitive, and daily life milestones. Until recently, no fully accessible language for DeafBlind children existed. Protactile is a fully tactile language that has recently developed among DeafBlind adults. This research endeavor focuses on measuring how well protactile can serve as an early language for DeafBlind children. Adult Protactile Experts who are DeafBlind will play with DeafBlind children using protactile multiple times per week in a longitudinal study. We will use number language to index the efficacy of the intervention. Number language serves as an excellent index because it provides a targeted set of vocabulary items to measure, is directly linked to cognitive development, and has non-linguistic perception-based abilities that have been found in typically developing infants. The specific aims of this study are: (1) Intervention: Identify which tactile number expressions produced by DeafBlind adults are learned by DeafBlind children, (2) Prototype Development: Develop a haptic device to be worn by DeafBlind children that delivers taps and squeezes and also measures heart rate patterns, and (3) Non-linguistic Assessment: Using the wearable device and heart rate patterns, we will demonstrate whether DeafBlind children perceive differences between different numbers of taps or squeezes produced by the device. We expect that DeafBlind children will express protactile number language, and that our haptic measure will reveal non-linguistic abilities similar to typically developing children. This project will generate evidence regarding the use of protactile in early intervention, supporting the achievement of early developmental milestones in DeafBlind children and contributing to their long-term quality of life. Further, successful completion will contribute to the development of nonlinguistic measures of cognition in DeafBlind children and other children with whom visual measures are not suitable.