Project Grant R44HD095783

This $778,398 National Institute of Mental Health project grant will fund research at the University of California, San Diego to test the accuracy of eye tracking as an early screening tool for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the general pediatric population. The research aims to screen approximately 8,000 toddlers ages 12-24 months attending well-baby checkups over the five-year period from May 2023 to March 2028. Researchers will use eye tracking technology to measure social attention...

This Project Grant award of $208,888.00 from the National Institute of Mental Health (CFDA 93.242 - Mental Health Research Grants) supports research to develop computer vision techniques for identifying autism spectrum disorder (ASD) motor deficits in infants. The Washington University project aims to leverage deep learning and computational ethology to automatically extract and analyze kinematic data from video assessments of infant behavior, with the goal of creating objective, scalable...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences program (CFDA 47.075) provides $106,315 to the University of Southern California to conduct a longitudinal investigation of caregiving, everyday motor experiences, and motor skill development in infants using wearable sensing technologies. The project aims to: 1) measure the amount and types of movement 7-month-old infants engage in at home during a typical week, 2) examine caregiving...

This Project Grant award of $431,750 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865) aims to develop algorithms using advanced machine learning models that can predict outbursts in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The key products and services to be delivered under this 2-year award, which runs from July 2025 to June 2027, include: Collecting a novel dataset on the...

This federal Project Grant award from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865) provides $150,803 to Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech) to conduct a behavioral and neural investigation of young children's attention and comprehension on interactive video viewing platforms. The study will use a within-subject experimental design...

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) awarded a $295,907 Project Grant (CFDA 93.865 - Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research) to Liberating Technologies Inc. (LTI) to develop a prototype "Unintrusive Pediatric Logging Orthosis Analytic Device (UPLOAD)." The goal is to create a commercially viable, unobtrusive remote monitoring system for pediatric orthotics that can improve compliance tracking. Key features include long battery life, low...

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a $448,335 Project Grant under the Trans-NIH Research Support program (CFDA 93.310) to the Regents of the University of Minnesota to conduct research on "Predicting Late Talkers in Infants Who Are at Elevated Familial Likelihood for Autism." The project aims to create a normative model for identifying language development challenges in infants who have a family history of autism, in order to facilitate early intervention. The research...

The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, doing business as Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, received a $472,325 Project Grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (CFDA 93.865 - Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research) on August 4, 2025. The grant supports the development of a computer vision algorithm to reliably track limb kinematics in infants and automate the scoring of Selective Motor Control (SMC), which is a key clinical feature in cerebral palsy. The...

OT App Design LLC received a $275,993 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation on April 1, 2022 to develop a mobile device-based screening tool for assessing cognitive and motor skills in K-6 students via machine learning analysis of handwriting samples. The tool aims to improve early identification of deficiencies through objective and rapid analysis of a single handwritten sentence photographed on a smart device application. Algorithms will be created to predict handwriting...

This Project Grant award of $201,250 from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) under CFDA Program 93.173 "Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders" supports research to examine precursors to language impairment in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The project aims to leverage recent advances in remote assessment of infant cognitive development to test three proposed mechanisms underlying language impairment in ASD: atypical speech...