Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 28, 2025
Frame-by-Frame Video Analysis of Idiosyncratic Reach-to-Grasp Movements in Humans
Published on: January 15, 2018
Hand Use and Grasp Sensor System in Monitoring Infant Fine Motor Development
HsinHung Kuo1,2, Jing Wang1,2, Manon M Schladen1,2,3
1Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center-DC, Washington, DC.
Insights
A novel hand use and grasp sensor system effectively tracked infant fine motor development longitudinally in homes. The system showed significant age-related improvements in grasp force and bimanual coordination.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric development
- Motor control
- Biomedical engineering
Background:
- Assessing fine motor development in infants is crucial for early detection of developmental delays.
- Existing methods often require clinical settings, limiting longitudinal data collection in natural environments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the feasibility of a home-based hand use and grasp sensor system for quantifying infant fine motor development.
- To establish if sensor-derived metrics correlate with age-related maturation of grasp skills.
Main Methods:
- A cohort study involving 12 typically developing infants aged 3-9 months.
- Monthly home visits were conducted to collect grasp data using a specialized sensor and instrumented toys.
- Data included grasp frequency, duration, force, and bimanual grasp proportion.
Main Results:
- Analysis of 2832 grasp events revealed significant increases in peak grasp force, average grasp force, and grasp duration with age (P<.001).
- The proportion of bimanual grasps also significantly increased with age (P<.001 for bar toy, P=.021 for candy toy).
Conclusions:
- The hand use and grasp sensor system demonstrated feasibility in capturing age-related changes in infant motor skills.
- This technology holds potential as an inexpensive tool for tracking infant grasp development and aiding in the early detection of developmental disorders.
Objective:
To assess the feasibility of a hand use and grasp sensor system in collecting and quantifying fine motor development longitudinally in an infant's home environment.
Design:
Cohort study. Researchers made home visits monthly to participating families to collect grasp data from infants using a hand use and grasp sensor.
Setting:
Data collection were conducted in each participant's home.
Participants:
A convenience sample of 14 typical developmental infants were enrolled from 3 months to 9 months of age. Two infants dropped out. A total of 62 testing sessions involving 12 infants were available for analysis (N=12).
Interventions:
At each session, the infant was seated in a standardized infant seat. Each instrumented toy was hung on the hand use and grasp sensor structure, presented for 6 minutes in 3 feedback modes: visual, auditory, and vibratory.
Main Outcome Measures:
Infant grasp frequency and duration, peak grasping force, average grasping force, force coefficient of variation, and proportion of bimanual grasps.
Results:
A total of 2832 recorded grasp events from 12 infants were analyzed. In linear mixed-effects model analysis, when interacting with each toy, infants' peak grasp force, average grasp force, and accumulated grasp time all increased significantly with age (all P<.001). Bimanual grasps also occupied an increasingly greater percentage of infants' total grasps as they grew older (bar toy P<.001, candy toy P=.021).
Conclusions:
We observed significant changes in hand use and grasp sensor outcome measures with age that are consistent with maturation of grasp skills. We envision the evolution of hand use and grasp sensor technology into an inexpensive and convenient tool to track infant grasp development for early detection of possible developmental delay and/or cerebral palsy as a supplement to clinical evaluations.
