How baby-driven robots could help disabled children

A typical five-month-old infant has hardly figured out how to sit up yet — even crawling may be months away — but there are a few babies who already know how to drive. They're steering their very own mobile robots.

The robots are designed to allow babies with disabilities to move around independently, at the same age their peers might learn to crawl. Whether they use robots or their own limbs, starting to move may be an important part of baby brain development, some childhood specialists think. Researchers don't want kids with cerebral palsy or other movement disorders to miss out.

"We think that babies with disabilities are missing an opportunity for learning that typically developing babies have," said Carole Dennis, a professor occupational therapy at Ithaca College in New York.

Dennis and her colleagues published the latest study on baby-drivable robots last month, in the journal Physiotherapy. They put together their robot, which they call the WeeBot, from off-the-shelf parts. Babies drive the WeeBot by leaning forward, right or left.

Many previous baby-driven robots used joysticks as controllers, but the WeeBot's creators thought leaning might be easier to learn and help expand the use of robots to even younger children.

"What I think is exciting is that we're pushing the age envelope much and much younger," said Maria Jones, a professor of physical therapy at the University of Oklahoma who was not involved in the WeeBot research.

The WeeBot joins an entire field of research, focused on babies driving robots, that some researchers say is ready for market.