Foundations of a smart toy development for the early detection of motoric impairments at childhood

Abstract

Introduction: Monitoring of neurodevelopment from birth until the age of six aims to enhance children's abilities and autonomy. Early detection of motoric impairments at childhood can facilitate necessary diagnosis and/or treatment. Ambient Intelligence (AmI) technologies could support future application domains like motoric impairments' detection at the home environment. Objective: The creation of adequate smart monitoring solutions at home can provide professionals with reliable information about the health status of a child. Furthermore, toys and playing are crucial for the overall development of a human being. Hence, the aim of this research is to improve the exactitude of traditional evaluation methods by embedding sensors into daily life toys that provide professionals with added value supplementary evidence enhanced by Decision Support Systems (DSS). It will be possible to detect potential motoric disorders in a standard child's development that might keep undetected by traditional ways. Materials and methods: A smart toy was designed by a trans-disciplinary team of professionals under a research consortium of Madrid universities supported by EDUCERE project. The main target of this nationally funded project is to create and evaluate innovative solutions to early detect neurodevelopment disorders and trigger requested actions of early intervention. This paper focuses on the "Smart Cube", an evolution of the traditional building blocks toy. Results: The research led to validate a scalable methodology to push the creation of innovative smart toys for early prevention of disabilities. The implementation of a web based Decision Support System (DSS) allows to support the reasoning procedures required by the smart toy solution. Ongoing validation data paves the way for long scale field trials to be performed at 3 nursery schools. Conclusion: The methodology allows the interaction between a trans-disciplinary team of professionals in order to undertaken the smart toys design and construction. Furthermore, toys verification stage needs to be measured in order to adjust diagnostic and therapeutic actions to pediatric patients.