Towards Development of Biomechatronic Tools for Early Diagnosis of Neurodevelopmental Disorders

This paper introduces Neurodevelopmental Engineering, a new interdisciplinary research area at the intersection of developmental neuroscience and bioengineering. Specifically, it presents current results of the design and development process of a set of instrumented toys equipped with a variety of sensors for behavioral analysis of infants in minimally structured environmental conditions. First the multidisciplinary design approach is presented, then the detailed functional and technical specifications of the proposed biomechatronic toys and of their scenarios of use are described. Finally, a clear picture of ongoing implementation of the proposed technology is provided together with preliminary results of verification tests