Inventing Innovative Solutions for Neurodivergent Children To Develop Motor Skills
Students in Northeastern’s Enabling Engineering class developed a musical ball as a tool for a sixth-grade autistic child with a genetic disorder and neurological differences to help develop gross motor skills in an engaging and exciting way.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was written by Cyrus Moulton. Main photo: Enabling Engineering students test their musical ball with client Aubrey, an autistic student with a rare genetic disorder. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
Engineering class designs ball that lights up, plays favorite songs and helps autistic client develop motor skills
For Audrey, a sixth grade autistic student with a rare genetic disorder and profound neurological differences, a ball is not just a toy but a source of comfort.
But that makes play a little difficult—after all, what good is a ball if you never let it go?
“She likes to hold it,” explains Larry Sanchez, a physical therapist with the LABBB Educational Collaborative who works with “Miss Audrey.”
“It’s counterintuitive for her to push it,” he says.
Enter Northeastern University’s Enabling Engineering class, where undergraduate students Jose Garza, electrical engineering, Arushi Gupta, bioengineering, Alden Rivers, mechanical engineering, and Romina Dianderas, bioengineering, have developed a musical ball to encourage Audrey to share and play.
“The biggest thing I learned from this project was how to work with a client that had a set of particular needs on a short timeline,” Rivers says. “As engineers we can always make something that caters to these needs and makes the world easier to live in for people like Audrey.”
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Audrey poses with (from left) LABBB occupational therapy assistant Jo-Ellen Percival, physical therapist Larry Sanchez, and Northeastern University Assistant Professor Kristy Johnson and students from the Enabling Engineering class. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
The Enabling Engineering class applies engineering to enable and empower individuals with disabilities. In the class, teams of students are paired with clients who have requested everything from a camera mount for a filmmaker who uses a wheelchair to a bow and arrow designed for people with visual impairments.
Audrey is a student in the LABBB Educational Collaborative—a program that designs and provides special education services in the most inclusive settings possible.
She is working with Sanchez, and LABBB therapists Jo-Ellen Percival and Cheryl Rogers on developing gross motor skills using a ball such as passing, sharing and rolling.
But a normal ball just wouldn’t do. Audrey needed something interactive, exciting, responsive and—perhaps most important—durable.
The result was delivered to Audrey and her therapists on Monday.
From the outside, the toy looks like an unassuming bright purple ball. But buried within its consumer casing is a cylindrical core of specialized electronics designed specifically for Audrey.
The ball’s plastic shell is wrapped in conductive material that recognizes when it is being held, and the ball then lights up and plays Audrey’s favorite songs when released.
“Hearing songs that she is familiar with is good,” says Gupta, a senior majoring in bioengineering at Northeastern. “And there’s nothing as nostalgic as Disney!”
Read Full Story at Northeastern Global News