Project Description
People of all ages are using digital technology to play games for entertainment. Despite this increasing use of digital media for amusement, few applications exist that capitalize on individual’s natural inclination towards these devices to capture meaningful data about the brain.
We are a team of researchers interested in learning more about children and adults with and without brain disorders. Generally, we are interested in designing applications that are engaging to all ages, but allow us to capture meaningful experimental data that will help lead to more refined medical diagnoses.
Many people with brain disorders have visual-motor integration (essentially hand-eye coordination) difficulties. These abilities are typically assessed using our traditional paper-and-pencil assessments., but we hope to create a more engaging assessment tool (and reach a broader population) through adapting this task to an interactive, iPad application. This tool will measure a person’s skill in visual-motor integration on an iPad. There are already several existing tools that measure this trait using a paper-and-pencil style assessment. The finalized task will consist of having the individual view a visual image and copying the image as best as possible (through freehand drawing, not tracing). The pictures range from very simple (a line or a circle) to highly complex (3D pictures).
Project Goals
- Creation of an iPad application that measures visual-motor integration by showing simple and complex shapes to a user and allowing the user to freehand draw the image
- The application should store data on how well the user draws the picture relative to the target picture
- The application should track information how quickly an individual can draw each picture.
- Overall presentation is game-like and engaging for a wide range of ages (2-90)
Constraints
- Should be able to interface with an iPad but with potential to expand to Android, Windows, and Google devices.
- Must be able to store visual information in a way that can be analyzed later Impact:
Impact
This project has the potential to change how we are able to conduct research. There are no measures that current measure visual-motor integration on an iPad, and no applications that could potentially collect data via multiple devices and store data on a shared database. This tool has the potential to be used nationally by researchers interested in rare genetic disorders and developmental disabilities.
Resources
We can provide expertise on the images that should be used and how the overall tasks should be designed. – We can help provide children and teenagers to help test the tools user-friendliness within a young population.
Licensing
TBD
Non-disclosure agreement
TBD
Point of Contact
Investigator I (Assistant Professor)
Cora Taylor, Ph.D.
Pediatric Psychologist | Investigator I (Assistant Professor)
Autism & Developmental Medicine Institute
Geisinger Health System
Lewisburg, PA, 17837