PRECARE is an innovative and integrated platform designed to improve the developmental surveillance of the baby. - Project Summary
In the US, over 63% of babies do not receive developmental surveillance. Furthermore, despite increased
developmental surveillance, 10% or less of babies with developmental delays (DD) (approximately 140,000)
are being correctly identified and receive the early intervention (EI) they need. Developmental surveillance can
identify developmental delays (DD) to support early interventions (EI) to minimize the impacts of the delays.
However, only half of the physicians use a formal screening tool, with most reviewing developmental
milestones and prompting parents for developmental concerns. Physicians have limited data points (i.e., a
baby’s developmental history) with a small window to complete a comprehensive risk assessment at each
clinical visit. Relying on parents is also a challenge. Parents face barriers, such as lack of knowledge about
child development, reliable recollection of developmental events during the visit, and longitudinal tracking of
developmental milestones, leaving them ill-equipped to observe and raise concerns properly.
To address the barriers, we propose to develop a Platform to Recognize and Evaluate Children for Age-
Appropriate Response and Early Detection of Delays (PRECARE). PRECARE will provide an innovative and
integrated solution to developmental surveillance by leveraging education and technologies that support smart
motion detection and convenient data sharing. Specifically, PRECARE will include (1) microlearning modules
for parents, including early indicators of DD and instructions on how to assess early motor abilities predictive of
DD to prepare parents for well-child visits; (2) multi-purpose developmental monitoring system for automatic,
ubiquitous, and smart motion detection; (3) computer vision and machine learning algorithms to quantify
behavioral data; and (4) case management system that allows pediatricians to access easy-to-read
dashboards of a baby’s behavioral data for risk assessment. PRECARE will be designed and developed by a
transdisciplinary team led by Mr. Tony Ma (PI), in coordination with Co-Investigators (Co-I), Dr. Michele Lobo,
Associate Professor from the University of Delaware, and Dr. Shishir Shah, Professor and Chair of Department
of Computer Science at University of Houston.
The specific aims of this SBIR Phase 1 are: 1) Use formative research with parents with babies and
pediatricians to develop the prototype PRECARE platform. 2) Pilot test PRECARE with 20 parents with babies
and their pediatricians to evaluate the platform’s feasibility (i.e., usability and acceptance).
In the short term, the study will demonstrate the feasibility of a secure, cloud-based platform to provide
education, mediate parent-provider information sharing and communication, and flag early indicators of DD. In
the long-term, PRECARE will increase developmental surveillance and EI, enable the creation of normative
databases for novel behavior makers of DD, and improve current surveillance protocols.
