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Achievement of Developmental Milestones Recorded in Real Time: A Mobile App-Based Study
Keiko Matsubara1, Tomoyuki Hattori2, Satoshi Narumi1
1Department of Molecular Endocrinology, National Center for Child Health and Development, Tokyo, Japan.
Insights
Real-time data from a mobile app on Japanese infant development milestones generally matched traditional data, highlighting the app
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Development
- Mobile Health Technology
- Infant Milestone Assessment
Background:
- Traditional methods for tracking infant developmental milestones rely on scheduled well-child visits.
- Real-time data collection offers a potentially more dynamic and comprehensive approach to monitoring child development.
- Caregiver-reported data via mobile applications can supplement clinical assessments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To characterize Japanese infant milestone achievement using real-time data from a caregiver-based web application.
- To compare app-based milestone achievement data with conventional normative data.
- To investigate sex, birth season, and feeding method influences on milestone attainment.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal data from 16,627 Japanese infants collected via the "Papatto Ikuji" mobile app (2014-2019).
- Milestones assessed included 20 items across personal-social, fine motor-adaptive, language, and gross motor domains.
- Restricted mean survival time analysis was used for subgroup comparisons (sex, birth season, feeding).
Main Results:
- App-based milestone achievement distributions closely mirrored conventional data, with minor variations noted (e.g., "Smile responsively").
- Significant sex-based differences observed: females achieved personal-social and language milestones earlier.
- Seasonal effects indicated earlier gross motor milestone achievement for winter-born infants compared to summer-born.
Conclusions:
- Mobile app-based, real-time data collection provides a viable method for assessing infant developmental milestones.
- App-derived data demonstrates comparability with established normative data, suggesting its utility.
- This technology can serve as a valuable complement to routine pediatric well-child visits.
Objective:
To clarify the characteristics of milestone achievement of Japanese infants using data assessed and recorded in real time via a Web-based app by caregivers.
Study Design:
Between 2014 and 2019, the achievement of developmental milestones of 16 627 Japanese infants were recorded via the mobile app Papatto Ikuji along with pertinent information including sex, birth date, anthropometric measurements, and information on feeding. The milestones consisted of 20 items belonging to 4 domains: personal-social, fine motor-adaptative, language, and gross motor. The distribution of age at milestone achievement was compared with 4 conventional normative data. Subgroup analyses according to sex, season of birth, and feeding methods were performed with restricted mean survival time analysis.
Results:
Age distributions of milestone achievement were generally similar in the app-based and conventional data. The exception was "Smile responsively," for which the age at achievement seemed higher in the app-based data. Subgroup analyses showed female-dominant sex differences in the achievement of person-social and language milestones. The results also showed seasonality in achievement of gross motor milestones, with earlier achievement in infants born in winter compared with those born in summer.
Conclusions:
We describe mobile app-based data on developmental milestone achievements that were recorded in real time. The app-based data were generally comparable with conventional normative data, suggesting that its potential to assess the development of children in real time. This could be used complementarily with the current well-child visits at scheduled time points.
