A Smart Toy to Enhance the Decision-Making Process at Children's Psychomotor Delay Screenings: A Pilot Study

Area of Science:

• Developmental Pediatrics
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• The EDUCERE project developed an ecosystem for early detection and stimulation of developmental disorders in children.
• Innovative solutions were sought to monitor psychomotor development through natural child-object interaction in home and school settings.
• Previous work involved smart objects and social networks for developmental monitoring.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design, implement, and validate a smart toy for automatic detection of psychomotor developmental delays.
• To enhance the effectiveness of the EDUCERE smart toy through iterative design and testing.
• To develop the EDUCERE developmental delay screening system (DDSS) integrated within the smart toy.

Main Methods:

• A pilot study involved 65 toddlers (23-37 months) interacting with stackable cubes equipped with sensors.
• Data on psychomotor performance were collected wirelessly and via video recordings for expert analysis.
• Interrater reliability and factor analysis were used to validate the data and identify key performance indicators.

Main Results:

• High interrater reliability (ICC=0.961) confirmed the consistency of expert scoring.
• Factor analysis revealed that accuracy and speed were significant predictors of performance (P=.001, P=.002).
• Trembling was not a significant factor in predicting performance (P=.79).

Conclusions:

• The EDUCERE developmental delay screening system (DDSS) is ready for use as an algorithm for automatic psychomotor delay detection.
• Factor analysis results will simplify the smart toy design by focusing on significant variables.
• Further refinement of the toy's data processing module will enhance its efficiency and effectiveness for early intervention.