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Baby-Babble-Blanket: infant interface with automatic data collection

1996; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 12; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/07434619612331277558

1477-3848

Linda J. Ferrier, Harriet Fell, Zehra Mooraj, Heriklia Delta, Dana Moscoe,

Infant Development and Preterm Care

The Baby-Babble-Blanket (BBB), a pad with pressure-sensitive switches linked to a Macintosh computer, was developed to provide infants or developmentally delayed children with a communication/environmental control system. Lying on the pad, infants use early movements, such as head rolling or leg raising, to produce digitized sound. The BBB software automatically collects data on the overall number of switch activations and on particular switches in a variety of conditions and graphs them. Possible important uses of the BBB are to train cause-effect skills, to increase the overall amount of movement, or to encourage particular movements. Preliminary data were collected on a 5-month-old infant with club feet, hydrocephaly, and poor muscle tone to determine what movements the infant could use to access the pad, and whether the use of particular body parts could be increased by the ability to access the digitized mother's voice. Results suggest that the infant could activate the device by two different movements. There was an increase in total switch activations in response to the sound of his mother's voice over a baseline with no sound and he was able to change from using his head to raising his legs to cause sounds to occur.