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

项目总结：先天性失明儿童与共病听力损失（聋盲儿童）通常 由于他们的多感官丧失，他们会经历严重的语言延迟。这些延误往往导致 这些儿童被误认为是发展迟缓， 干预、康复和教育工作。提供早期的、无障碍的语言可以解决这个问题 是由早期认知发展的支架产生的。然而，目前的康复方法非常 有限的成功。现有的干预措施依赖于建立儿童接触的物体之间的联系 (e.g.,鞋），和特定的功能活动（例如，走出去）。这种方法缺乏语言上的 早期认知发展所需的结构。只有在童年后期，干预措施才开始使用视觉 手语和/或口语。这种方法提出了两个主要问题：第一， 语言对聋哑儿童来说是完全无障碍的。第二，当语言被引入时，许多孩子 已经过了可以有效地获得语言的年龄（即，语言的关键期）。 因此，只有少数盲聋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，没有完全无障碍的语言， 有孩子。Protactile是一种完全触觉的语言，最近在聋哑人中发展起来。这 研究奋进的重点是测量原始触觉作为盲聋人早期语言的效果 孩子成人Protactile专家谁是聋盲将发挥与聋盲儿童使用protactile多 在一项纵向研究中，每周两次。我们将使用数字语言来索引干预的有效性。 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项， 测量，与认知发展直接相关，并具有非语言感知能力， 在典型的发育中的婴儿中发现。本研究的具体目的是：（1）干预：确定哪些 盲聋儿童能够学习成年盲聋儿童产生的触觉数字表达;（2）原型 开发：开发一种触觉设备，供聋哑儿童佩戴，可以提供轻拍和挤压， 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 率模式，我们将证明是否聋哑儿童感知不同数字之间的差异 敲击或挤压的声音。我们期望盲聋儿童能表达出他们的触觉能力。 我们的触觉测量将揭示与典型发育儿童相似的非语言能力。 该项目将产生关于在早期干预中使用protactile的证据，支持 实现聋盲儿童早期发展里程碑，并促进其长期质量 生命此外，成功完成将有助于发展认知的非语言措施 聋哑儿童和其他视力测量不适合的儿童。

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.