Dr. Cole Galloway, a physical therapist, associate professor and the director of the University of Delaware at Newark Infant Motor Laboratory, spoke recently to the Rehoboth Beach Sunrise Rotary Club. Galloway is conducting research with a project called Babies Driving Robots. The project provides robotic-powered chairs to special-needs infants with mobility disabilities.

The work is important because much of infant brain and behavior development emerges from the thousands of experiences each day that arise as babies independently move and explore their world. This is the concept of embodied development, Galloway said.

Infants with Down syndrome, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, autism and other disorders can have mobility limitations that disconnect them from the ongoing exploration that their peers enjoy.

“If these infants were adults, therapists would have options of assistive technology such as power wheelchairs,” Galloway said. “Currently, children with significant mobility impairments are not offered power mobility until they are 5 to 6 years of age or older.

“This delay in mobility is particularly disturbing when you consider the rapid brain development during infancy. In turn, the infant’s behaviors - their actions, feelings and thinking - all shape their own brains’ development. Babies literally build their own brains through their exploration of their complex world.”

“Infants with limited mobility play in one location while their peers or siblings go off on distant adventures all over the room or playground,” Galloway said. “With the mobile robot, they can drive themselves into the center of attention. In fact, their friends all want to try the cool car. Research and clinicians predict that this increased social interaction alone will provide an important boost in their cognitive development.”

Technology breaks down barriers

The effect of immobility on infants and families is hard to overestimate. When a baby starts crawling and walking, everything changes for everyone involved – from family and friends to the local and national community.

“Now consider the negative impact of a half decade of immobility for an infant with already delayed development,” Galloway said. “When a baby doesn’t crawl or walk, everything also changes. Immobility changes the infant and the family. Given the need, you would think that the barriers to providing power mobility must be insurmountable. In fact, the primary barrier is safety.” Therapists and parents fear young children in power wheelchairs might mistakenly hurt themselves or others, or tear up the family home.

“This is, of course, understandable, and is the same fear that every parent with a newly walking infant faces. It is the solution to the safety problem that is the real barrier. The current clinical practice is to avoid power mobility until the child can follow adult commands,” Galloway said. “Your parents didn’t wait until you followed their every command before they let you walk – they held your hand. They required you to stay near them and alerted you to obstacles in your way.

“This is the way infants learn real-world navigation, and it is exactly these safety features that are being built into our mobile robot.

“This is not high tech for its own sake but infant and family driven technology. That is, our robotics technology is being developed directly to eliminate barriers to every infant having safe, go-anyway mobility. What this means is that babies, moms, grandmas and teachers are showing us how to make future generations of lightweight, high-tech, low-maintenance, Mars-rover-style, go-anywhere devices.”

Galloway said no one had ever tried using robots with babies. Early experiments show 7-month-olds can learn to operate the simple joystick controls, and he is passionate about the possible benefits to children with special needs of even younger ages. “This project embodies that type of scientific and community impact that is emerging at the University of Delaware. The task for us now is to partner with all sectors of the Delaware community to provide power mobility for all special-needs children.

“To make Delaware a model state, the Babies Driving Robots project needs partners in research, business, policy, community organization and education. There are new devices to build, new studies to conduct, new barriers to eliminate. Babies are waiting; the time is now. We simply cannot wait to get these devices to families throughout Delaware. Our focus, simply put, is to eliminate all barriers to ending this healthcare gap now.”