An inertial sensor-based system to develop motor capacity in children with cerebral palsy

Learning to communicate with alternative augmentative communication devices can be difficult because of the difficulty of achieving controlled interaction while simultaneously learning to communicate. What is needed is a device that harnesses a child´s natural motor capabilities and provides the means to reinforce them. We present a kinematic sensor-based system that learns a child´s natural gestural capability and allows him/her to practice those capabilities in the context of a game. Movement is captured with a single kinematic sensor that can be worn anywhere on the body. A gesture recognition algorithm interactively learns gesture models using kinematic data with the help of a nearby teacher. Learned gesture models are applied in the context of a game to help the child practice gestures to gain better consistency. The system was successfully tested with a child over two sessions. The system learned four candidate gestures: lift hand, sweep right, twist right and punch forward. These were then used in a game. The child showed better consistency in performing the gestures as each session progressed. We aim to expand on this work by developing qualitative scores of movement quality and quantifying algorithm accuracy on a larger population over long periods of time.