A research project led by John Franchak, associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, will use wearable sensor technology and artificial intelligence, or AI, to study how infants develop motor skills in their everyday environments. The project is supported by a three-year, nearly $424,000 grant to UCR from the National Science Foundation, or NSF, and additional grants to Franchak’s collaborators at the University of Southern California and University of Georgia.

The study will use AI to automatically track and quantify the types and amounts of movement that seven-month-old and nine-month-old infants engage in, such as sitting, crawling, and standing, within their home environments. It will also examine caregiving practices to determine how parents influence the opportunities infants have for physical activity. The study’s goal is to understand how daily routines and caregiver behavior influence the pace and success of infant motor development. 

Unlike traditional research methods that rely on labor-intensive video analysis in laboratory settings, this project uses lightweight wearable sensors, worn by the infants, to capture their continuous movement data at home across a full week.

“Early motor skills are the building blocks for later development in areas like communication and spatial awareness,” Franchak said. “But to fully understand how motor learning happens, we need to observe infants in daily life. This project lets us do that using cutting-edge tools that are practical to use in the home.”

The project builds on Franchak’s previous NSF-funded research, which pioneered the use of wearable sensors to record infants’ full-day movement patterns. With the current grant, his team will expand nationally, mailing sensors to families across the U.S. and collecting large-scale, real-world data on infant motor activity.

“Ultimately, the study aims to predict motor skill outcomes, such as sitting and standing proficiency, by the time the infants reach 11 months of age,” Franchak said. “Our findings could provide valuable insights for clinicians, particularly pediatric physical therapists, seeking to promote healthy motor development.”

Franchak joined UCR's Department of Psychology in 2014. He directs the Perception, Action, & Development Lab, where researchers explore how infants and children perceive and act in everyday environments. His work has earned several honors, including being named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science in 2015 and a Visiting Scholar at the McPherson Eye Research Institute in 2020.