The babies love their souped-up skateboards.
But don't worry. The people putting these
Enter the skateboards or the “self-initiated prone progressions crawlers.” With the baby lying belly down on the device, high-tech sensors in the baby's “sensor suit” gather information about the infant's learning and mobility
Researcher Thubi Kolobe, a rehabilitation sciences professor at the OU College of Allied Health,
It's plain old fun, from a baby's point of view. Seven-month-old Jayce McWilliams looked almost like a biker stretched belly-down on the crawler, happily pushing one way and another during a news briefing Tuesday.
“He loves it,” said his mom, Brandi Lewis. Jayce is one of the study participants without cerebral palsy. “He can go where he wants to.”
Likewise for 8-month-old Avery Lyles, said her mother, Natalie Lyles.
“It took a couple of times for her to figure it out,” she said.
Initiating movement
Kolobe said the sophisticated crawler helps babies initiate the movement and the sensors spark an extra boost when the child can't push it. Kolobe said the sensors seem to say, “Oh, the poor little baby is trying to move, so move.”
About $11.5 billion is spent on the lifetime care of people with cerebral palsy, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About one in 303 children age 8 have cerebral palsy.
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