Our long-term goal is to develop therapeutic intervention and prevention programs which support the early leg coordination patterns of preterm infants at increased risk for spastic cerebral palsy, a disorder of movement coordination that delays or in some cases prevents independent walking. The objective of this project is to develop and validate an in-home infant Kicking Activated Mobile (iKAM) system that uses low-cost Microsoft Kinect tracking technology to activate an overhead infant mobile in response to the leg movements of infants. Once the in-home iKAM is developed and validated, we plan to invesetigate whether preterm infants at increased risk for cerebral palsy can generate more mature and appropriate leg coordination patterns when interacting with the in-home iKAM daily for several weeks, and whether this intervention optimizes their subsequent mobility patterns, including walking.

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