Kara joined the lab in Spring 2023 and received training to score pretest and posttest videos of children for motor skill and dexterity using the Quality of Upper Extremity Skills Test (QUEST). She has been helping to score questionnaires, compile data on training and therapy logs from families, and prepare training kits as part of our ongoing randomized controlled trial. Moreover, Kara has been scoring QUEST videos collected at 3 timepoints (pretest, posttest, and 1-month follow-up) from our ongoing 2-group clinical trial. She has presented her work at the UConn Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2024 as well as the UConn One Health Conference in Spring 2024.

Co-author: 5 conference poster presentations at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026, the 2026 Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026, the 79^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine in Fall 2025, the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Pediatrics Annual Conference in Fall 2024, and 78^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine in Fall 2024; 2 abstracts in conference proceedings (Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology & Pediatric Physical Therapy)

Honors Thesis Title: “A Comparative Analysis of Two Play-Based Upper Extremity Training Programs in Improving Arm Motor Function in Children with Hemiplegia”

Akshitha scored attentional patterns of children with hemiplegia as they drove a single joystick-operated ride-on-toy within their physical environment. She categorized children’s attentional patterns as being task-appropriate (looking at the path, props used, joystick-hand interface), directed towards social partners, or task-inappropriate (child is distracted). She compared changes in attentional patterns of children from early to late training sessions. Akshitha presented her work at the 2023 Research Connections Event and the 2024 Spring Frontiers Undergraduate Research Symposium. Over Fall 2024, Akshitha wrote a grant to support her efforts in developing materials to support researcher and parent delivery of ride-on toy sessions for our ongoing clinical trial. She was awarded this grant, and she worked on putting together these kits over the Spring 2025 semester. Based on this work, she presented at the 2025 Spring Frontiers Undergraduate Research Symposium. She is presently scoring attention for videos collected from our 2-group NIH-funded randomized controlled trial.

Co-author: 1 free paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026, 1 poster presentation at the American Physical Therapy Association (CT-APTA) Connecticut Annual Conference in Fall 2024

Funding: Awarded the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) supply award in Fall 2024

Honors Thesis Title: “The Differences in the Oral, Gut, and Respiratory Microbiomes in Children with Cerebral Palsy Compared to Neurotypical Children: A Review”

Vivian joined our lab in Fall 2023 and has helped with data collection sessions as part of both our home- and camp-based ride-on-toy navigation training programs. Moreover, she has also been trained on scoring a standardized test of motor skills called the Shriner’s Hospital Upper Extremity Evaluation (SHUEE) that we use as an outcome measure before and after completion of the training program. Following establishment of reliability, Vivian has coded data collected on the SHUEE for both our home-based study and our ongoing clinical trial comparing the effects of conventional occupational therapy and a training program using ride-on toys. Vivian presented at the Allied Health Research Symposium and the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2026.

Co-author: 1 paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026, 1 poster presentation at the 2026 Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026, 1 poster presentation at the 79th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine in Fall 2025, and 1 poster presentation at the UConn One Health Conference in Spring 2024Honors Thesis Title: “Play to Win: A Randomized Controlled Trial to Assess the Effects of Play-Based Training on Upper Extremity Function in Children with Hemiplegia”

Hannah joined the lab in Summer 2024 and coded independent vs. assisted use of the affected upper extremity during ride-on-toy navigation sessions in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (UCP) over the course of a 3-week camp-based training program. Using the video coding software Datavyu, Hannah examined videos of early and late training sessions to assess the extent to which children used their affected upper extremity independently or with adult assistance for navigation. Specifically, when children use their affected arm to control the joystick to move the toy, she has categorized arm use as being independent (child controls joystick by themselves) vs. assisted (adult provides partial or complete assistance to the child to help control the joystick). We hypothesize that over training sessions, children will increase independent use of their affected arm for navigation with a concurrent decrease in the adult assistance required. Our hypotheses were proved in this study. Presently, she is coding videos from our ongoing clinical trial and is assessing independent vs. assisted use of the affected arm during 2 different types of play-based upper extremity interventions for children with hemiplegia. Hannah presented her work at the Allied Health Research Symposium in Spring 2026.

Co-author: 1 paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026, 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026Honors Thesis Title: “Effects of a Ride-On-Toy Navigation Training Program on Independent Affected Arm Use in Children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy”

Sara will analyze differences in affective patterns of a subset of children in our current randomized controlled trial SPEED and CRAFT groups across early and late training sessions. Specifically, she will use videos of training sessions to code the percent time in each session that the child spends in positive (child is smiling, interested, engaged, and compliant with training activities) vs. negative (child is frowning, crying, distressed, or not complying with training activities) affective states. Sara presented her work at the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2026.

Co-author: 1 paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026, 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026Honors Thesis Title: “Rolling with Emotion: Emotional Engagement in Children with Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy in a Two Play-based Interventions”

Chevy has helped with numerous data collection sessions where he assists the primary trainer in delivering our ride-on toy navigation training program. He is also trained to code the quantity of movement of the affected arm in children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy as they engage in different types of training activities within our intervention sessions. Specifically, he will code if children use their affected only, unaffected only, or both arms together during navigational and task-based components of our training sessions. In the randomized controlled trial comparing the effects of 2 types of play-based interventions to improve upper extremity motor function, Chevy will code a subset of data from children in SPEED and CRAFT groups with the goal to evaluate which of the 2 groups promote greater use of the affected arm either in isolation or together with the unaffected arm. Chevy will also code the number of times during the session that the child stops use of their affected arm during session activities due to muscle fatigue or poor muscular control. Chevy presented his work at the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2026.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026

Gizem first worked on scoring a standardized test called the ‘Box and blocks test’ that was administered before and after a ride-on toy navigation training program delivered by clinicians within an intensive 3-week upper extremity camp. Gizem scored the number of blocks that children transferred across a barrier in 60 seconds with their affected and their unaffected hands. Thereafter, Gizem began working on analyzing motion tracking data collected during pretest, posttest, and follow-up sessions as part of our single arm clinical trial. During the testing sessions, motion sensors were attached to children’s hands, forearms, and arms. Children were then asked to perform a range of motion activities and functional movement patterns with their arms. Gizem has been working on analyzing data collected during different activities across testing sessions from a pilot study with children with hemiplegia. She is also presently coding motion tracking data collected as part of our ongoing randomized controlled trial.

Keerit is coding attentional patterns of children with cerebral palsy who are engaged in behavioral interventions aimed at promoting arm motor function. Keerit will code attentional patterns of children in our ongoing clinical trial. She will further help in analyzing changes in attentional patterns of children over the course of the 6-weeks of intervention among children in the experimental and control groups.

Co-author: 1 paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026

Zaria is a McNair scholar who joined the lab in Summer 2024. Zaria helped with data collections on a study that assessed the feasibility of clinician-implemented ride-on-toy navigation training provided within a 3-week summer camp. Thereafter, she also received training on coding children’s nonverbal communicative behaviors, specifically facial expressions (affect) and behavioral compliance during training sessions involving the use of ride-on toys. Our hypothesis was that the ride-on-toy training program is child-friendly and intrinsically motivating for children. We expected to see high levels of child enjoyment/positive affect & behavioral compliance through the duration of the training study. In line with our hypotheses, Zaria’s data found high levels of positive affect during early and late ride-on-toy navigation training sessions. She continues her coding efforts in the lab and has also been helping us put together training kits for researchers and caregivers to assist the delivery of our control intervention based on standard-of-care for our ongoing randomized controlled trial. She also scored affective patterns during early, mid, and late training sessions for children in the Summer 2024 study. She presented this data at the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium and the McNair/CAPS Poster Presentation in Spring 2025. She is presently helping with our ongoing NIH-funded clinical trial.

1^st author: 1 poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026, 1poster presented at the Annual Medical Research Conference for Minoritized Scientists (ABRCMS) in Fall 2024

Co-author: 1 paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026, 1 poster presentation at the 79^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) in Fall 2025

Abhigna coded data from our recently completed home/community-based 6-week study working with children with cerebral palsy. The training program comprises use of the affected arm for navigation (i.e., when the toy is in motion) and for goal-directed functional tasks (i.e., when the toy is at rest). Abhigna coded the parts of the session when the toy is at rest and is interested in analyzing (1) arm use: i.e., extent of unimanual vs. bimanual arm use to complete the goal-directed activities, (2) level of independence: i.e., does the child require adult assistance to complete the activities, and (3) type of gross and fine motor actions used (e.g., reach, lift, throw, catch, pinch, grasp, open, close, etc.). She assessed the changes in the quantity and quality of arm movements during tasks over the 6-week training duration. Over Summer 2025, she was involved in analyzing this data. She has now moved onto coding similar data from our ongoing 2-group clinical trial. Abhigna presented her work at UConn Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium 2025.

Funding: Recipient of The Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (IBACS) Summer Undergraduate Fellowship Summer 2026 and IBACS Supply Award for Spring      2026

Rebecca is a Rowe scholar who joined the lab in Spring 2024. Rebecca worked on data collected in Summer 2024 from the Lefty and Righty Camp of Connecticut. Rebecca scored the smoothness/jerkiness of movements of the affected arm as children learned to drive the toy. She used video coding software to assess changes in the average and maximum length of movement bouts (a bout is defined as one acceleration and deceleration) from pretest to posttest. She presented this pilot data at the 2025 Spring Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium. Rebecca is presently coding data from our ongoing clinical trial.

1^st author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026Honors Thesis Title: “A Review of the Biomarkers of Pain and Inflammation in People with Cerebral Palsy”

Over the Spring and Summer 2024, Jana worked to develop skills to score the Quality of Upper Extremity Skills Test (QUEST). The QUEST assesses unimanual motor capacity in children and comprises 4 domains of dissociated movements, grasps, protective extension, and weight bearing. Jana has completed coding videos of children who participated in a clinician-delivered 3-week program of ride-on-toy navigation training at a summer camp. Over Spring 2025, she helped with creating training materials for parent-delivered and researcher-delivered sessions of ride-on toy training for our ongoing clinical trial. Since Spring 2025, Jana has been scoring QUEST videos collected at 3 timepoints (pretest, posttest, and 1-month follow-up) from our ongoing 2-group clinical trial. 

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM)) to be held in Fall 2026, 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026, 1 poster presentation at the 79th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine in Fall 2025

Maya joined our lab in Spring 2025, and over Spring and Summer 2025, she has completed training on methods to code attentional patterns of children with hemiplegia as they engage in play-based interventions to improve arm function. Specifically, she coded and classified children’s attention as directed towards task-appropriate targets (i.e., attention directed towards training activities), social targets (i.e., looking at the trainers, caregivers, or siblings), device (i.e., looking at the ride-on toy or joysticks), or elsewhere (i.e., child is distracted). Maya has recently started assessing children’s attentional patterns as they engage in 2 different types of play-based interventions. She uses video data and systematically codes children’s attentional patterns as they participate in either ride-on toy intervention sessions or seated activities modeled around conventional occupational therapy. She will use attention as a proxy to understand mechanisms underlying motor learning and as a marker of child engagement during training sessions. She will compare attentional patterns between both groups across early, mid, and late sessions in both training groups.

Co-author: 1 paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026, 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026

Amelia joined the lab in Spring 2025 and is working on our ongoing NIH-funded randomized control trial where she assesses the fidelity of implementation of both intervention groups in our study. She uses a custom-designed, pre-defined fidelity checklist to assess if trainers/clinicians are delivering the key ingredients of the manualized interventions as designed. She randomly chooses one training session from each the early (weeks 1 & 2), mid (weeks 3 & 4), and late (weeks 5 & 6) parts of the intervention for fidelity coding.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026

Hadja is analyzing objective acceleration data collected from ActiGraph activity monitors worn by children on wrists of both hands during intervention sessions as well as before and after the intervention (at baseline/pretest, at posttest, and at follow-up). Hadja uses the ActiLife software to convert raw accelerations into activity counts and ultimately calculate the percent duration of time spent in sedentary, light, and moderate-to-vigorous activity. We use activity monitors to understand the extent of asymmetry between activity of the affected versus unaffected arm and how arm activity changes over the course of behavioral interventions in children with hemiplegia. 

1^st author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026Co-author: 1 paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026

Katie codes videos of training sessions using the Datavyu behavioral coding software. Specifically, for developing reliability, she coded a subset of videos of training sessions from our past study with children with hemiplegia to categorize children’s differential use of their affected versus unaffected arm during training sessions. Following establishment of intra- and inter-rater reliability, Katie is using this coding scheme to categorize arm activity in children who receive training using ride-on toys versus children who receive seated conventional therapy-based training. Katie presented her work at the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2026.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026

Jacob is scoring changes in path navigation errors made by children during an incrementally challenging path navigation test. Children in our study, irrespective of the group they are assigned to (experimental group or control group), complete a path navigation test where they are asked to drive the toy controlled by a single joystick along straight, circular, and slalom test paths demarcated by cones. This path navigation test is conducted at pretest, posttest, and follow-up timepoints. Jacob codes the number of times that children go outside the demarcated path and the number of times that children bump into the cones or any other fixed or moveable objects along the edges of the path. Greater amounts of out-of-path episodes and bumps against objects are taken to indicate poor navigational/maneuvering control.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026

Nicole has learned to score a standardized motor test of unimanual function called the Quality of Upper Extremity Skills Test (QUEST). We administer the QUEST before and after our training interventions and at 1-month follow-up with children with hemiplegia. Our hypothesis is that following behavioral interventions focused on training upper extremity function, we expect to see improvements in QUEST scores from pretest to posttest, with improvements sustained at 1-month follow-up. Following the establishment of reliability, Nicole has started scoring videos from remaining children in the study across the 3 time-points.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026

Alex has been scoring and analyzing data collected from ActiGraph watches that children with hemiplegia participating in our intervention studies wear on both wrists to assess the extent of use and asymmetry between the affected and unaffected arms. He uses the ActiLife proprietary software as well as our custom-designed software code to assess (a) the extent to which the affected arm is sedentary or engaged in light, moderate, or vigorous activity and (b) extent of asymmetry in duration and intensity of use of affected vs. unaffected arms. These data will be collected for a duration of 1 week (children will wear watches on both arms for a duration of 1 week) at the pretest, posttest, and at 1 month follow-up. We expect to see greater symmetry in arm use and greater moderate to vigorous activity in the affected arm following the intervention compared to baseline levels. 

Funding: Recipient of The Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (IBACS) Summer Undergraduate Fellowship Summer 2026

Co-author: 1 paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026

Our lab has designed an experimental upper extremity training intervention using ride-on toys to promote arm motor function in children with hemiplegia. As part of this intervention, children engage in different types of functional object-based upper extremity gross and fine motor tasks such as reaching, catching-throwing, pushing-pulling, lifting, knocking, squeezing, pinching, grasping-releasing, etc. Meredith scores each of these tasks during early and late training sessions to specifically assess the type of task, quantity and quality of affected arm use, level of independence of arm use, amount of assistance required, and position of wrist/fingers during training tasks. We expect to see improvements in gross and fine motor performance following our behavioral intervention.

Our lab has designed an experimental upper extremity training intervention using ride-on toys to promote arm motor function in children with hemiplegia. As part of this intervention, children engage in different types of functional object-based upper extremity gross and fine motor tasks such as reaching, catching-throwing, pushing-pulling, lifting, knocking, squeezing, pinching, grasping-releasing, etc. Using a millisecond-to-millisecond behavioral coding software, Hannah specifically assess the duration of the session that children practiced gross vs. fine motor tasks and unimanual vs. bimanual symmetrical and asymmetrical tasks. For each of these types of tasks, she assesses the duration of independent vs. adult-assisted upper extremity use. We expect that from early to late training sessions, children will increase their independence in using their affected arm and decrease the level of assistance from adults required during completion of tasks.

Rachel started working in our lab as a senior starting in Summer 2025 and is presently training to analyze non-verbal communication of children through observation of their facial expressions and affective states. She specifically looks at training videos of children collected during early, middle, and late parts of our training program. We are interested in assessing the extent to which children seem to enjoy and express interest during training activities. We have designed our interventions with the intention of making them fun and playful for children, and this coding scheme assesses the extent to which the interventions are indeed enjoyable and interesting for children. Following the establishment of reliability, Rachel has been scoring videos of children participating in our ongoing clinical trial. Rachel has also been involved in data collection where she assists the primary trainer in delivering our interventions.

Coauthor: 1 free paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026

Sarah joined our lab in Summer 2025. She is trained to code videos collected as part of an intervention study that compares the efficacy of 2 different types of play-based interventions designed to improve upper extremity function in children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy. Specifically, Sarah assesses the extent to which children require adult assistance vs. are able to independently use their affected arm to engage in training activities.

Co-author: 1 paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026

Kaitlyn joined our lab in Summer 2025 and is trained to score child and service provider engagement during different types of intervention sessions as part of our ongoing clinical trial. Child outcomes following a behavioral intervention are highly dependent upon their level of engagement and participation during the sessions. Child engagement in turn is dynamic and evolves through the interactions between the child and the service provider. Kaitlyn is learning to code different factors associated with the child, the service provider, and their interaction that will impact child engagement. She will use data from our ongoing trial to compare engagement levels of children across 2 different types of play-based interventions (seated vs. mobile) for children with hemiplegia. 

Sanhita joined the lab in Summer 2025 and is trained to score upper extremity/arm use during 2 playful interventions, both of which focus on promoting affected arm use in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (UCP). Sanhita will code videos from children in the experimental group who receive training using a single joystick-operated ride-on toy and from children in the control group who receive seated training modelled around occupational therapy. Specifically, following the process of establishment of reliability, she has started examining the extent to which children in both groups use their affected, unaffected, or both hands during the training activities. Her coding scheme will allow us to examine the type of training opportunities afforded by the 2 different types of training programs being compared.

Mia joined the lab in Summer 2025. She is trained to score a standardized test of upper extremity motor function called the Shriner’s Hospital Upper Extremity Evaluation (SHUEE) for children with hemiplegia that is administered before and after our training interventions and at 1-month follow-up in our ongoing clinical trial. The SHUEE includes 16 bimanual tasks that involve movement patterns that children use during daily activities. The scoring process includes assessing the extent of affected arm use during the bimanual activities and the dynamic positioning of the affected arm during performance of the activities. Mia assesses the extent of improvement in performance on the SHUEE in a subset of children with hemiplegia from our larger ongoing study following 2 types of playful interventions.

Co-author: 1 paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026, 1 conference poster presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026

Preeti joined our lab as a SHARE scholar in Summer 2025. She has been trained over the summer in assessing fidelity of training delivery for an ongoing randomized controlled trial (RCT). She uses a custom-designed, pre-defined fidelity checklist to assess if trainers/clinicians are delivering the key ingredients of the manualized interventions as designed. She randomly chooses one training session from each the early (weeks 1 & 2), mid (weeks 3 & 4), and late (weeks 5 & 6) parts of the intervention for fidelity coding. Preeti will present a subset of these data that she has scored at the Frontiers Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2026.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026, 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026

Isabella joined the lab in Winter 2025 and has begun training to establish reliability in scoring child affect, i.e., facial expressions, during intervention sessions. Our lab has designed playful training activities for children with unilateral cerebral palsy, and we will use the affect coding scheme to assess the extent to which our training activities are indeed enjoyable and fun for children. Isabella will specifically score videos from our ongoing randomized controlled trial and compare children’s affective states while engaging in conventional seated occupational therapy vs. a training program inclusive of driving joystick-operated ride-on toys.

Thomas joined our lab in Winter 2025 and is training to learn the scoring process for a standardized motor test called the Quality of Upper Extremity Skills Test (QUEST). This test assesses children’s unimanual motor capacity in the domains of dissociated movements, grasps, protective extension, and weight bearing. Thomas is presently working on the process of establishing intra- and inter-rater reliability on this coding scheme. Following the process of reliability, he will score data from children with hemiplegia to assess the effectiveness of behavioral interventions in improving motor function.

Kenneth joined the lab in Winter 2025. He is training to learn to score a standardized test of upper extremity motor function called the Shriner’s Hospital Upper Extremity Evaluation (SHUEE) for children with hemiplegia that is administered before and after our training interventions and at 1-month follow-up in our ongoing clinical trial. The SHUEE includes 16 bimanual tasks that involve movement patterns that children use during daily activities. The scoring process includes assessing the extent of affected arm use during the bimanual activities and the dynamic positioning of the affected arm during performance of the activities. Kenneth will assess the extent of improvement in performance on the SHUEE in a subset of children with hemiplegia from our larger ongoing study following 2 types of playful interventions.

Varnika joined our lab in Winter 2025 and is training to score data collected from our ongoing randomized controlled trial that compares our single joystick-operated ride-on toy intervention with a dose-matched intervention based on standard-of-care. Varnika scores a path navigation test conducted at pretest, posttest, and 1-month follow-up. Her coding scheme assesses changes in the smoothness/jerkiness of movements of the affected arm before and after behavioral interventions to improve arm function provided over a duration of 6 weeks. She will use video coding software to assess changes in the average and maximum length of movement bouts (a bout is defined as one acceleration and deceleration) following the interventions. We hypothesize that children assigned to the ride-on toy training SPEED group but not the control CRAFT group will increase average and maximum bout length and reduce rates of bouts from pretest to posttest with gains retained at follow-up

Chetna joined our lab in Winter 2025 and is presently working on learning the coding scheme that assesses the extent of smoothness vs. jerkiness of movement of the affected arm in children with unilateral cerebral palsy when they drive a single joystick-operated ride-on toy. She is working on establishing intra-rater and inter-rater reliability on this coding scheme over the Spring 2026 semester. Once reliable, Chetna will code videos from a subset of children to analyze carryover effects of behavioral interventions at 1 month follow-up (i.e., are intervention effects if any sustained at follow-up after intervention completion).

Tallulah joined our lab in Winter 2025 and is receiving training on a video-based coding scheme that assesses the quantity and quality of use of the affected arm during 2 types of upper extremity rehabilitation programs in children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy. Specifically, Tallulah will assess the extent to which children require adult assistance vs. are able to independently use their affected arm to engage in training activities. Presently, she is establishing reliability on the coding scheme by scoring a subset of videos collected from our ongoing NIH-funded study.

Kevin joined the lab in Winter 2025 and is receiving training on scoring object-based upper extremity tasks practiced as part of upper extremity training programs that are being evaluated in our ongoing clinical trial. Specifically, Kevin scores both gross and fine motor movement patterns during training sessions and assesses the type of tasks (unimanual vs. bimanual), quality of children’s use of their affected arm, and the level of independence vs. adult assistance required during these tasks.   

Since joining our lab in Winter 2025, Amy has started training on using observational video coding methods to assess affective states of children during intervention sessions through analysis of their facial expressions while engaging in training activities. Following the establishment of reliability, she will score videos collected from children participating in our ongoing clinical trial.

Saunak joined our lab in Winter 2025 and is presently training to analyze kinematic data collected from motion trackers placed on children’s arms as they are asked to complete range of motion activities and functional tasks such as a block pass task using both hands. Based on this coding, we can obtain information on peak angles and range of motion of the shoulder, elbow, forearm, and wrist joints on the affected and unaffected arms.

Sarthak joined the lab in Spring 2026 and has been working on classifying training videos collected from our ongoing clinical trial with children with hemiplegia into their component parts. For example, in our experimental group that engages in upper extremity games while driving a ride-on toy, children either complete navigational challenges or object manipulation tasks. In the control group based on conventional occupational therapy, children complete stretching, building, and art-craft activities. Sarthak helps to classify these activities within early, mid, and late training videos so that we can assess children’s use of their affected arm during these different activities.   

Christina joined our lab in Winter 2025, and helps to assess the fidelity of interventions provided as part of a randomized controlled trial to compare the efficacy of 2 different types of upper extremity training programs (experimental program uses joystick-operated ride-on toys and the control program is based on conventional occupational therapy) with children with hemiplegia. Specifically, both interventions are manualized programs, and we want to ensure that the key ingredients of both interventions were delivered uniformly across all children in both groups. Christina uses custom-developed fidelity checklists to score 3 randomly selected videos per child to assess if the key ingredients of the interventions were delivered as planned to children.  

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026

Jack joined our lab in Winter 2025 and is presently focused on learning techniques to score attentional patterns of children with hemiplegia as they engage in play-based interventions to improve arm function. We use attentional coding as a proxy of child engagement (i.e., how interested the child is and their active participation during training activities) and their motor learning. To assess children’s attention, we score video data collected from training sessions with children. Specifically, Jack will systematically code children’s attentional patterns as they participate in either ride-on toy intervention sessions or seated activities modeled around conventional occupational therapy. He will compare attentional patterns between both groups across early, mid, and late sessions.

Poorva joined the lab in Summer 2025 and received training to score children’s facial expressions and non-verbal communication as indicators of children’s affective states (positive, interested, neutral, or negative) during rehabilitation interventions. We use this coding of affective states as a proxy for child engagement/investment during training sessions. The more positive or interested the child is the more engaged they are and likely to participate in training activities.

Eshita joined our lab in Summer 2025 and received training to score child engagement during intervention sessions. Child engagement is dynamic and evolves as a function of multiple factors at the level of the child, the service provider, and the nature of their interaction/rapport. Eshita coded engagement from videos collected from children receiving an experimental intervention using joystick-operated ride-on toys.

Heidi worked on data collected from our ongoing randomized controlled trial that compares our single joystick-operated ride-on toy intervention with a dose-matched intervention based on standard-of-care. Heidi scored a path navigation test conducted at pretest, posttest, and 1-month follow-up. She specifically coded video data to assess the smoothness/jerkiness of movements of the affected arm before and after the intervention. She used video coding software to assess changes in the average and maximum length of movement bouts (a bout is defined as one acceleration and deceleration) following the intervention.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026

Meghan joined the lab in Spring 2024 and was trained to score a standardized test called the Shriner’s Hospital Upper Extremity Evaluation which assesses children’s spontaneous use of their affected upper extremity during bimanual activities of daily living. Following establishment of reliability on this scheme over Spring and Summer 2024, Meghan coded data from the SHUEE collected before and after a clinician-delivered 3-week program of ride-on-toy navigation training at a summer camp. She helped with analysis of these data and scored SHUEE data collected from our ongoing NIH-funded randomized controlled trial.

Co-author: 1 paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026, 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026, 1 poster presentation at the 79th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine in Fall 2025

After joining the lab in Summer 2023 through the SHARE Virtual Apprenticeship Award program, Kylie first helped us with recruitment efforts for our home intervention study involving the use of joystick-operated ride-on toys to improve arm function in children with hemiplegia. Following the establishment of reliability, Kylie coded improvements in children’s independent navigational efforts across training sessions in the home intervention study. Thereafter, Kylie coded videos collected during clinician-based delivery of the ride-on-toy navigation training program with children with hemiplegia. Kylie participated in analyzing these data across both studies. Kylie presented her research at the Spring 2024 Frontiers Undergraduate Research Symposium. She was involved in data collection in Spring 2025 and revising her coding scheme for our current NIH-funded clinical trial to assess the extent to which conventional therapy vs. our ride-on toy-based intervention can promote independent affected arm use in children with hemiplegia.

1^st author: 1 poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026

Co-author: 2 poster presentations at the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Pediatrics Annual Conference in Fall 2024 and the American Physical Therapy Association Connecticut (CT-APTA) Annual Conference in Fall 2024; 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Pediatric Physical Therapy)

Caroline joined the lab in Winter 2023 and was instrumental in helping us develop a new coding scheme that assesses the quality of gross and fine motor movements in the affected and less-affected arms in children with unilateral cerebral palsy during task-oriented upper extremity training program sessions using ride-on toys. She specifically coded for the types of gross (reach, lift, throw, catch, push, pull, knock, hold etc.) and fine motor (pinch, grasp, open, close, twist, squeeze) movements that children engage in to assess if the quality of movements changed following the 6-week intervention program using ride-on toys. Following the establishment of reliability, Caroline coded and analyzed videos collected from our home/community-based study and our NIH-funded clinical trial. Additionally, Caroline was involved in training another student on the same coding scheme.

1^st author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026

Ashley joined our lab as an undergraduate researcher in Winter 2023 and was involved in scoring in-session engagement during ride-on-toy navigation training sessions by coding factors related to the child (interest, comfort, openness, use of strengths-based language), the service provider (interest, comfort, strengths-based language, communication, adaptation), and the child-service provider relationship (collaboration, interaction warmth). Ashley was involved in developing this coding scheme and developed reliability on this coding scheme. Thereafter, she coded data from a clinician-delivered single joystick-based ride-on toy training program in a camp-based setting. Ashley was involved in data collection with children with hemiplegia participating in our studies. Additionally, Ashley presented her findings in Spring 2025 in the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research symposium. 

1^st author: 2 conference platform presentations at the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Pediatrics Annual Conference in Fall 2024 and the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Connecticut Annual Conference in Fall 2024; 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Pediatric Physical Therapy)

Funding: Recipient of the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) Travel Award in Summer 2024

Ashley continued in the lab in Summer 2025 as a research specialist. Ashley has been involved in data collection as the primary and secondary trainer for children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy. She has received training in data collection and project management for our ongoing clinical trial, video-based coding schemes, data analysis, data processing, data clean-up, undergraduate student supervision, and student scheduling. Moreover, she has been involved in initiating efforts in our lab to collect structural and functional MRI data from children with hemiplegia to understand differences in neural functioning in children with hemiplegia compared to neurotypical children and to identify neural markers predictive of responsiveness to behavioral interventions among children with hemiplegia. Ashley has been involved in the development of a lab website as well as creating the lab’s first newsletter to assist in outreach efforts. She is presently working on her first first-author paper based on research in our lab and is a co-author on a systematic review protocol paper on measures to assess child engagement that will be submitted in February 2026 for publication in JBI Evidence Synthesis.  

Maddie joined our lab as an undergraduate researcher in Spring 2023 and coded from a past study that assessed the feasibility of using single joystick-operated ride-on toys to improve spontaneous affected upper extremity use in children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy (i.e., weakness on one side of the body). Specifically, Maddie coded the attentional patterns of children with hemiplegia when they drive ride-on toys with joystick controls provided on their affected side to better understand the visuo-perceptual and cognitive processes underlying children learning to drive and maneuver the controls with their ‘weaker’ non-dominant arm. Maddie reported data from children who received the training program delivered by clinicians/therapists as part of a 3-week annual camp for children with hemiplegia. Maddie presented her work in the 2023 Spring Research Connections Undergraduate Event and was a co-author on a poster presented at the UConn One Health Conference in 2024. Maddie continued to code attention patterns of children during intervention sessions as part of our other ongoing studies. She presented her thesis work at the 2025 Spring Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the 78^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine, 2024); 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology)

Honors Thesis Title: “Toying with Attention: Analyzing Attention Patterns in Children with Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy Engaged in a Ride-on-Toy Navigation Training Program”

Maddie continued in the lab in Summer 2025 as a research specialist. Maddie has been involved in data collection as the primary and secondary trainer for children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy. Maddie received training over Summer 2025 in data collection, data coding, data analyses, project management, and student mentoring skills. Over Summer 2025, Maddie was involved in developing the framework for an instructional course that our lab is putting together by creating and compiling training materials from our ongoing intervention study. Our goal is to create training modules that will enable other research and clinical groups to replicate our training program using ride-on toys for children with hemiplegia at other clinics/research sites across the country. We will create multiple modules that will allow other teams to modify the ride-on toys, set up training activities and environments to promote upper extremity motor function, and progress training activities and create the just-right challenge for children. Additionally, Maddie put together the first draft of 2 manuscripts for publication over the past year.

Julia worked on a coding scheme that assesses the quality of gross and fine motor movements of the upper extremities during training sessions involving ride-on toys in children with unilateral cerebral palsy. Specifically, Julia coded portions of these training videos when the toy is stationary, and the child is engaging in task-oriented upper extremity training activities using objects/playful props. She coded for the types of gross (reach, lift, throw, catch, push, pull, knock, hold etc.) and fine motor (pinch, grasp, open, close, twist, squeeze) movements that children engage in to assess if the quality of movements changed following our intervention programs.

Higor received training in coding in-session engagement during intervention sessions by scoring factors related to the child and the service provider that influence in-session engagement. Higor used a behavioral coding software called ELAN to score engagement. Ultimately, we are interested in evaluating how engagement differs across different types of training activities and how it is influenced by client, service provider, and relational factors.

Jennelle received training on a video-based coding scheme that evaluates children’s gross and fine motor skills while engaging in object-based goal-directed tasks during intervention sessions designed to improve arm function in children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy. She used a behavioral coding software Datavyu to code the time in the video that children use their arms to engage in actions such as reaching, pushing, pulling, catching, throwing, grasping, squeezing, releasing, etc. while interacting with playful props/objects. Jennelle specifically evaluated if upper extremity actions are unimanual or bimanual, independent or assisted, and gross or fine motor in nature. Additionally, Jennelle assessed changes in the quality of upper extremity movement patterns from early to late intervention sessions in our ongoing clinical trial.

Nirali joined our lab in Spring 2024 and worked to score navigational accuracy while driving a ride-on toy controlled by an arm-operated joystick provided on the child’s affected side in children with unilateral cerebral palsy. Specifically, she coded the number of times that the child bumped against objects along a path while driving through an obstacle course as well as the number of times that the child went outside the designated path. Following establishment of reliability, she coded data from 2 studies: (1) a researcher-caregiver co-delivered home-based ride-on-toy navigation intervention and (2) a clinician-delivered camp-based ride-on-toy navigation intervention.

Co-author: Poster presentation at the 79^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) in Fall 2025

Olivia joined the lab in Fall 2024 during the initial stages of planning for our current ongoing randomized controlled trial. She was instrumental in helping develop activities for our comparison group based on conventional occupational therapy-based activities. Olivia created activity descriptions for these exercises and easy to follow-along videos for all stretching activities for researcher-delivered and caregiver-delivered sessions in the CRAFT (Creative Rehabilitation for Arm Function Training) group. She also created pictorial and video instructions for skills that were being targeted and that we would like interventionists to emphasize through building and art-craft activities practiced by children in this group. Additionally, she was involved in data collections with children during the Spring 2025 semester.  

Katherine joined our lab in Summer 2024 as part of the SHARE Virtual Summer Apprenticeship program. Through this program, Katherine trained to code in-session engagement during a research intervention study involving the use of joystick-operated ride-on toys to facilitate upper extremity function in children with hemiplegia. She learned to use a software called ELAN to code child engagement conceived as being dynamic and co-constructed by the child and the service provider. Specifically, she coded entire videos of training sessions for key behaviors shown by the child and the service provider that may be suggestive of child engagement and the quality of their interactional relationship. Following training on this coding scheme, Kate coded video sessions from children with Cerebral Palsy during a 3-week daily training program using ride-on toys. Katherine presented her data at the Frontiers Undergraduate Research Symposium and the Allied Health Research Symposium in Spring 2025.

Co-author: 1 conference platform presentation at the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Connecticut Annual Conference in Fall 2024

Honors Thesis Title: “Analysis of child-service provider engagement during rehabilitation sessions involving ride-on toys in children with hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy”

Aarthi joined the lab in Fall 2022 and initially worked on data collected in Summer 2022 as part of a summer camp with children with hemiplegia, which incorporated dual joystick-operated ride-on-toy navigation training as part of camp activities. Aarthi helped code children’s bimanual coordination skills by scoring activity of the affected and unaffected arms during navigational turns (90, 180, 360 degree turns). Aarthi assessed the extent of use of the affected arm while turning during early and late training sessions. Over Fall 2023, Aarthi worked on analyzing kinematic data collected during upper extremity range of motion tasks from children with hemiplegia. Finally, from Spring 2024, Aarthi worked on developing and learning a coding scheme that analyzes gross and fine motor actions during ride-on toy navigation training sessions. Following the establishment of reliability on this coding scheme, Aarthi coded a subset of data from a home-based study. Aarthi presented her work done in the lab at the Fall 2023 and Spring 2023 Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposia.

Co-author: 2 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026 and the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023     

Honors Thesis Title: “Joystick-Operated Ride-On-Toy Training: Task-Based Assessment of Upper Extremity Improvement in Children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy”

Max joined the lab over Summer 2023 and was trained on a behavioral coding scheme where he scores video data to assess children’s extent of use of their affected arm during training sessions involving use of a single joystick-operated ride-on toy as part of a longitudinal intervention study delivered within the children’s community. Specifically, in this home-based study, Max scored the extent of unimanual and bimanual arm use both during navigation as well as structured upper extremity tasks that are part of each training session. He also helped with data analysis and interpretation efforts for this study. Max has presented his research at the Frontiers Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2024 and the UConn Exercise Science Capstone Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2025.

Honors Thesis Title: “Examination of use of the Affected Limb During Joystick Operated Ride on Toy Sessions in Children with Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy”

Niti joined the lab in Summer 2023 to learn a video-based coding scheme that assesses the extent of children’s use of their dominant vs. non-dominant upper extremities during training sessions involving the use of joystick-operated ride-on toys. Following establishment of reliability on this coding scheme, Niti completed coding data collected from children who received bimanual training using dual joystick-operated ride-on toys at a 3-week summer camp for children with cerebral palsy. Specifically, Niti’s coding assessed the extent of children’s use of their arms (affected/non-dominant arm only, unaffected/dominant arm only, or use of both arms together) during the entire training session. She coded early and late sessions during the 3-week program. Her data suggest that the ride-on-toy navigation intervention was effective in affording high levels of affected arm use across early and late sessions with an increase in affected arm use for theme-based task completion from early to late sessions. Niti has presented her work in the 2024 and 2025 Spring Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposia.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026

Honors Thesis Title: “Improvements in Bimanual Motor Coordination and Movement Control of Children with Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy following a Ride-on-Toy Navigation Training program”

Megan joined the lab in Summer 2024 and worked on a task-related coding scheme. More specifically, she coded data from early and late ride-on-toy navigation training sessions among children with hemiplegia. She coded the parts of the session when the toy was at rest and children engaged in goal-directed tasks. She analyzed children’s (1) arm use: i.e., extent of unimanual vs. bimanual arm use to complete the activities, (2) level of independence: i.e., does the child require adult assistance to complete the activities, and (3) type of gross and fine motor actions used (e.g., reach, lift, throw, catch, pinch, grasp, open, close, etc.). She has coded changes in the quantity and quality of arm movements during tasks over the 6-week training duration and has also assisted in analyzing these data. Megan presented her pilot results at the Allied Health Research Symposium in Spring 2025.

Honors Thesis Title: “Quality of Affected Upper Extremity Use During a Ride-On Toy-Based Training Program in Children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy: A Pilot Study”

Neha joined our lab in Fall 2023 and worked on assessing changes in children’s navigational accuracy following the ride-on-toy navigation training. Specifically, Neha coded the rates/minute of bumps against obstacles and rates/minute of children going out of the demarcated path during a standardized path navigation test. The path navigation test involves children driving through a straight path, a circular path, and a slalom path. We found that children showed improved navigational accuracy following the intervention. Neha worked on analyzing data collected from wrist-worn monitors on both affected and unaffected arms before, during, and after the ride-on toy intervention. Neha also helped with data collection with children with hemiplegia at a summer camp. Moreover, in Fall 2024, Neha received an IBACS grant to prepare training kits to support delivery of our ongoing clinical trial. Neha presented a poster based on her IBACS supply award at the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2025. She also presented her thesis work at the Physiology & Neurobiology Honors Research Symposium event in Spring 2025 and the STEM Senior Scholar Showcase event in Spring 2025. 

1st author: 1 poster presentation at the 79th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine in Fall 2025

Co-author: 1 free paper presentation at the 80th Annual Meeting of the American                 Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) to be held in Fall 2026, 1 poster presentation at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Fall 2024; 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Pediatric Physical Therapy)

Honors Thesis Title: “Efficacy of Single Joystick-Operated Ride-On-Toy Navigation Training Program to Promote Upper Extremity Motor Function in Children with Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy”

Funding: Recipient of Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (IBACS) Supply Award in Fall 2024

Meghan coded affective states of children with hemiplegia during sessions involving navigational training with ride-on toys. Following completion of reliability for this coding scheme, she coded videos collected as part of a clinician-delivered training study involving the use of single joystick-operated ride-on toys with children with hemiplegia. She categorized affect as being positive (child seemed happy, cooperative, engaged, smiling, etc.) or negative (child is upset, crying, frustrated, angry, etc.). Meghan was also involved in in-person data collections in Fall 2023. In Spring 2024, Meghan was involved in developing a coding scheme to assess child engagement during training sessions. She coded a subset of videos from a clinician-delivered training study in Spring 2024 to develop reliability on this scheme. Meghan presented her thesis-related work at the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2025.

Co-author: 3 conference poster presentations at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA-CSM) in Spring 2026, American Physical Therapy Association (CT-APTA) Connecticut Annual Conference in Fall 2024, and the 78^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine in Fall 2024; 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology)

Honors Thesis Title: “Driving is fun! Affective expressions of children during a ride-on-toy navigation training program”

Izzy coded affective states of children with hemiplegia during sessions involving navigational training with ride-on toys. Following completion of reliability for this coding scheme, Izzy started analyzing videos collected as part of the home intervention study involving the use of single joystick-operated ride-on toys. She categorized affect as being positive (child seemed happy, cooperative, engaged, smiling, etc.) or negative (child is upset, crying, frustrated, angry, etc.). Over Summer 2023, Izzy was involved in data collection as part of this community-based intervention study. Izzy completed all coding efforts related to the home intervention study and helped with data analyses and interpretation for this study. She also coded videos from our ongoing randomized controlled trial and has also been involved in training junior undergraduate students in our lab prior to graduation.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the American Physical Therapy Association Connecticut (CT-APTA) Annual Conference in Fall 2024

Faith started working with us over Summer 2023. She trained to develop skills needed to assess subtle attentional patterns of children with hemiplegia as they learn to drive a single joystick-operated ride-on-toy within their physical environment. Following establishment of reliability, Faith coded videos collected during a clinician-delivered ride-on-toy training at an annual summer camp in 2023. Over Fall 2024, Faith also helped develop activities for a control group based on conventional occupational therapy for clinicians to implement in our ongoing clinical trial.

Co-author: 1 poster presentation at the American Physical Therapy Association Connecticut (CT-APTA) Annual Conference in Fall 2024

Over Summer and Fall 2024, Rachel worked on developing materials and ideas for a control intervention based on standard-of-care therapies that children with cerebral palsy typically receive in school/clinic-based settings. This control group intervention program will be used for our randomized controlled trial NIH R21 grant.

Alanna joined the lab in Spring 2024 and helped develop materials for a control group intervention modeled around occupational therapy provided to improve upper extremity function in children with unilateral cerebral palsy. The control group intervention was being developed in preparation for our presently ongoing randomized controlled trial (recently funded R21 grant) to compare the effects of a ride-on-toy navigation training program with those of a dose-matched standard-of-care intervention. Alanna came up with activity ideas and developed pictorial instructional training materials for researcher-delivered sessions for this program.

Jordan worked on scoring smoothness/jerkiness of movements of the affected arm as children with hemiplegia used this arm to drive a single joystick-operated ride-on toy during an intervention lasting for 6 weeks. Following establishment of reliability, Jordan used the Datavyu software to code for the number and duration of movement bouts during early and late training sessions of the study. Jordan completed coding videos from three timepoints during a path navigation test from children with hemiplegia.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Pediatrics Annual Conference in Fall 2024; 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Pediatric Physical Therapy)

Natasha’s first project in the lab involved extensive work on a qualitative study aimed at understanding stakeholder perspectives related to physical activity engagement in youth with developmental disabilities following their transition out of school systems. We conducted multiple focus group discussions with youth, their caregivers, special educators, and therapists to learn about their perspectives around factors affecting physical activity in youth with disabilities. Natasha worked extensively on thematic coding of the transcribed data using NVivo software. She compiled study results into a poster that was presented at an international autism conference. Her next project involved children with hemiplegia. In this study, Natasha was responsible for scoring a standardized functional test of affected arm use during bimanual activities administered before and after a training intervention using joystick-operated ride-on toys for children with hemiplegia. Natasha successfully coded videos from children with hemiplegia collected at four time-points.

Co-author: 1 journal manuscript published (2025) in the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities journal: “Perspectives of Key stakeholders on Physical Activity in Youth with Developmental Disabilities on Physical Activity: A Qualitative Study.”; 4 conference poster presentations at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) in Spring 2023 and the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) in Spring 2022

Lucy worked on 2 studies in our lab. In study 1, she scored smoothness/jerkiness of movements of the affected arm as children with hemiplegia used their arms to drive dual joystick-operated ride-on toys during an intervention provided at a 3-week summer camp for children with hemiplegia. She used Datavyu coding software to code the number and duration of movement bouts during early and late training sessions of the study. In study 2, where we delivered the ride-on toy training as a 6-week home/community-based program with children with cerebral palsy, Lucy helped develop a scheme that assesses the quantity and quality of use of upper extremities during training sessions (i.e., for what duration in the session is the affected vs. unaffected arm used, is the use of the affected arm independent or does the child require adult assistance to use that arm, and what types of functional activities does the child engage in during sessions).

Co-author: 2 conference poster presentations at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023  

Uthara joined the lab in Spring 2023 and coded a subset of data collected as part of our completed home/community-based study with children with cerebral palsy that assessed the feasibility and efficacy of using joystick-operated ride-on toys to improve affected arm function in children with hemiplegia. She evaluated if children’s motor skills, as assessed by a standardized motor test (called the QUEST – Quality of Upper Extremity Skills Test), changed following a 6-week intervention protocol compared to a 6-week control phase when children received treatment-as-usual. Her findings indicate that following the intervention phase, children showed greater improvements in motor skills compared to the control phase. These findings have implications for the use of ride-on toys as easy-to-use and family-friendly tools to boost motor function in the affected arm in children with hemiplegia. Uthara presented her work at the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2024.

1^st author: 1 conference poster at the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Pediatrics Annual Conference in Fall 2024; 1 abstract in the conference proceedings (Pediatric Physical Therapy)

Co-author: 1 conference poster at the 78^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine in Fall 2024; 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology)

Honors Thesis Title: “Exploring the efficacy of a single joystick-operated ride-on-toy navigation training program for enhancing upper extremity function in young children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy”

Rylee worked on coding and analyzing data collected at a summer camp for children with hemiplegia. Our study incorporated dual joystick-operated ride-on-toy training at this camp. Rylee established reliability on a behavioral coding scheme using a subset of videos and then started coding the remaining training videos to assess the extent of use of the affected arm for navigation during training sessions within the study. After completion of coding for that study, Rylee worked on assessing the fidelity of a research-delivered home/community-based intervention involving ride-on toys. Rylee assessed the delivery of the key ingredients of the intervention by different trainers and provided feedback to improve the consistency of intervention delivery across trainers.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023

Ruth worked on data collected as part of our recently completed NIH/C-PROGRESS-funded study where we collected pilot data to determine the feasibility and efficacy of using single joystick-operated ride-on toys within community-based settings to improve affected arm function in children with hemiplegia. Specifically, Ruth was a blinded coder who assessed if the intervention led to changes in children’s motor skills (as assessed using a standardized test of bimanual upper extremity function called the Shriner’s Hospital Upper Extremity Evaluation) compared to a control phase where children received treatment-as-usual and if these changes were sustained at 1 month follow-up. Her findings indicated that children showed greater improvements in spontaneous use and dynamic posturing of their affected arm following the intervention compared to the control phase, with some improvements being sustained at 1-month follow-up. Ruth presented her work at the Allied Health Honors Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2024. She was also a co-author on a poster presented at the One Health conference held at UConn in Spring 2024. 

1^st author: 1 conference platform presentation at the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Pediatrics Annual Conference in Fall 2024; 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Pediatric Physical Therapy)

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the 78^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine in Fall 2024; 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology)

Honors Thesis Title: “Effects of joystick-operated ride-on-toy navigation training program on upper extremity motor function in children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy”

Ava joined the lab with Kylie as part of the SHARE summer virtual apprenticeship in Summer 2023 and worked on recruitment efforts for our home intervention study involving the use of joystick-operated ride-on toys to improve arm function in children with hemiplegia. Ava trained to develop reliable coding skills to evaluate changes in children’s independent navigational efforts across training sessions in the home study. Ava presented her research at the Frontiers Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2024.

Co-author: 1 poster presentation at the American Physical Therapy Association Connecticut (CT-APTA) Annual Conference in Fall 2024

Kyle joined the lab in Fall 2023 and worked on qualitative data analyses and interpretation of questionnaires collected from different stakeholder groups to understand the feasibility and perceived benefit from the ride-on-toy navigation training delivered in a camp-based and a home-based setting. He summarized ratings of children, clinicians, and caregivers on their experience with the training program. Additionally, Kyle was involved in analyzing data collected from parent-report questionnaires assessing the use of the affected upper extremity during bimanual activities of daily living. He also helped score and analyze data collected from wrist-worn ActiGraph activity monitors that provided information on the amount of activity in the affected upper extremity before, during, and after the ride-on-toy navigation training program. Kyle presented his work at the Allied Health Honors Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2024.

Co-author: 1 platform at the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Pediatrics Annual Conference in Fall 2024 and 3 poster presentations at the American Physical Therapy Association Connecticut (CT-APTA) Annual Conference in Fall 2024 and the 78^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine in Fall 2024; 3 abstracts in conference proceedings (2 in Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology and Pediatric Physical Therapy)

Honors Thesis Title: “Efficacy of a community-based training program using commercially-available ride-on toys to improve motor outcomes in children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy”

Shannon worked on a literature review for her capstone project where we reviewed the literature to date on the use of technology-based interventions including virtual reality, robotics, and exergames to improve upper extremity function in children with cerebral palsy up to 18 years of age. Shannon presented her work at the Exercise Science Capstone Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2024. 

Honors Thesis Title: “Enhancing pediatric upper body rehabilitation through innovative mobility technologies of assistive devices and virtual platforms for children with cerebral palsy”

Dev worked on multiple intervention studies with children with hemiplegia. For all these studies, he scored a standardized test of motor skills called the Quality of Upper Extremity Skills Test (QUEST) that was administered at pretest and posttest. He carefully coded pretest and posttest videos collected before and after clinician-based and researcher-based delivery of our experimental ride-on-toy navigation training to assess for changes in children’s unimanual motor skills following the training program.

Co-author: 3 conference poster presentations at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023 and 1 platform conference presentation at the 76^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine in Fall 2022

Caroline worked on analyzing data collected from a pilot study that assessed the effects of a 3-week dual joystick ride-on-toy navigation training as a form of bimanual therapy. She specifically evaluated the effect of the intervention on children’s navigational accuracy (i.e., rate of obstacle contacts and out-of-path instances) from before to after program completion. Her data suggested that following the training, children showed a statistically significant reduction in the rates of contact between the ride-on toy and stationary objects or surfaces, suggestive of improvements in motor skills. Caroline presented her work in the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2023 and the Exercise Science Capstone Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2023.

Co-author: 2 conference poster presentations at the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Connecticut Annual Conference in Fall 2024 and the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) conference in Spring 2023

Honors Thesis Title: “Improvements in Motor Coordination and Movement Control in Children with Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy Following a Ride-on-Toy Navigation Training Program”

Neil helped code video data collected from a constraint-induced movement therapy camp for children with hemiplegia. He coded a subset of this data to help establish inter-rater reliability. Over Spring 2023, Neil helped prepare for a clinical trial that involved a home-based intervention study using ride-on toys. He helped develop pictorial training manuals for researcher- and caregiver-delivered sessions. He has also helped us organize data from multiple studies in the lab.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023  

Emily joined the lab in Fall 2022 and coded children’s bimanual coordination skills by scoring activity of the affected and unaffected arms during navigational turns (90, 180, 360 degree turns). She assessed the extent of use of the affected arm while turning during early and late training sessions. She presented her results in the Fall 2023 and Spring 2023 Frontiers Undergraduate Research Symposium. Emily thereafter also helped assess the fidelity of a research-delivered home/community-based intervention involving ride-on toys. She (along with Rylee, another undergraduate student) assessed the delivery of the key ingredients of the intervention by different trainers and provided feedback to improve the consistency of intervention delivery across trainers.  

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023      

Fiona scored movement smoothness/jerkiness on the affected side in children with hemiplegia as they use their arms to drive dual joystick-operated ride-on-toy during a 3-week summer camp-based ride-on-toy intervention study with children with hemiplegia. She used Datavyu coding software to compare the number and duration of movement bouts during early and late training weeks of the study. Additionally, Fiona helped with data collection sessions at a camp in Summer 2023.

Co-author: 2 conference poster presentations at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023   

Gia worked in the lab for a semester and was involved in analyzing data collected at a summer camp for children with hemiplegia. Our study incorporated dual joystick-operated ride-on-toy training at this camp. Gia coded a subset of these training videos to assess the extent of use of the affected arm for navigation during training sessions within the study.

Stephanie worked in the lab for one semester and over the early part of Summer 2023. Stephanie helped us prepare for the intervention study by developing training materials, playful take-aways, 2D and 3D intervention props, and training manuals. In fact, she helped build a collaboration with the OPIM Innovate 3D printing lab (Department of Operations & Information Management) at UConn and helped find designs and 3D print these playful 3D props to be included in the study. She also helped with data collection with a child with ataxic cerebral palsy over 6 weeks as part of the home-based intervention study. 

Catherine helped code video data collected from a constraint induced movement therapy camp for children with hemiplegia. Specifically, she evaluated if the 3-week camp led to changes in children’s gross and fine motor skills. She helped develop the coding scheme for this and then coded data from all children that were part of this study.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023

Sharanya joined the lab in Spring 2021 and coded a standardized test of motor performance called the Bruininks Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency collected from children in the autism RCT study at pretest, posttest, and follow-up. She was also involved in researching and developing child-friendly intervention themes for a home study that involved the use of ride-on toys to encourage arm function in children with cerebral palsy. Moreover, she also helped in data collection with children with cerebral palsy at a 3-week summer camp in Summer 2023.

Sharanya presented her work at the Frontiers Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2023.

Honors Thesis Title: “Effects of creative movement & play-based interventions on motor skills of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Results from a randomized controlled trial”

Candy worked on the camp study with children with hemiplegia. She used a behavioral video coding software to code attentional patterns of children while driving the ride-on-toy. She categorized attention as task-related (looking at the path and objects involved), device-related (looking at the joystick-hand interface), social (looking at social partners), and elsewhere (child is distracted and looking at task-unrelated targets). She scored data collected from a single joystick-controlled ride-on-toy training protocol.

Co-author:  3 conference poster presentations at the 77^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine in Fall 2023, the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023, and the 76^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine in Fall 2022  

Andrea worked on the camp studies with children with hemiplegia. She assessed changes in children’s navigational accuracy assessed by number of bumps against obstacles and number of times children went out of the demarcated path. She analyzed these data collected from single joystick and dual joystick-operated ride-on-toy training protocols across 2 consecutive years. She summarized and presented her results at the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2023.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the 76^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine in Fall 2022

Kavya worked on the ride-on-toy 2022 study based out of an annual summer camp for children with hemiplegia. She coded independent versus assisted activity on affected and unaffected sides of children with hemiplegia during their navigation efforts as part of training sessions provided over 3 weeks. Following the establishment of reliability, Kavya then coded a subset of the entire dataset of the children.

Co-author: 2 conference poster presentations at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023 

Amanda started work in the lab by contributing to a systematic review we were conducting at the time on physical activity interventions for youth with autism between 19 and 30 years. She helped with literature searches, abstract screening through Rayyan, narrowing the number of articles, and in the manuscript writing and proof-reading process. On the hemiplegia project, she was involved in scoring the standardized Quality of Upper Extremity Skills Test (QUEST) to assess improvements in children’s motor skills following ride-on-toy training during a camp-based study.

Co-author: 1 journal publication in the Autism journal: “Effects of physical activity and exercise-based interventions in young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A systematic review”; 1 conference poster presentation at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023

Michael worked on the dual joystick-operated ride-on-toy 2022 study conducted in a summer camp for children with hemiplegia. He coded independent versus assisted activity on affected and unaffected sides of children with hemiplegia during their navigation efforts as part of training sessions provided over 3 weeks. Following the establishment of reliability, Kavya then coded a subset of the entire dataset of the children.

Co-author: 2 conference poster presentations at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023

Aparna worked in the lab for 3 years as part of multiple projects. She worked on the autism project and scored changes in upper body and lower body functional strength of children who received a strength and agility-based general movement/exercise intervention. Children’s strength was assessed through a custom-developed functional strength exercise protocol. Next, Aparna worked on transcribing focus group discussions that were conducted with youth and caregivers to understand their perceptions around physical activity engagement in youth with disabilities following their transition out of school systems. She put together a poster based on the findings of this work, which was presented at an international autism conference. Finally, in a third project, Aparna was trained to score a standardized functional test of affected arm use during bimanual activities administered before and after a training intervention using single joystick-operated ride-on toys to improve arm function in children with hemiplegia.

1^st author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Autism Research in Spring 2022

Co-author:  1 journal publication published (2025) in the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities journal: “Perspectives of Key stakeholders on Physical Activity in Youth with Developmental Disabilities on Physical Activity: A Qualitative Study”; 4 conference poster presentations at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023, the 6^th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media in Spring 2022, and the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Autism Research in Spring 2022); 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Iproceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & Social Media, 2022)

Megha worked on the camp study from summer 2022 with children with hemiplegia. She used a behavioral video coding software to code attentional patterns of children while driving the ride-on toy. She categorized attention as task-related (looking at the path and objects involved), device-related (looking at the joystick-hand interface), social (looking at social partners), and directed elsewhere (child is distracted and looking at task-unrelated targets). She scored data collected from a dual joystick ride-on-toy navigation training protocol.

Co-author:  2 conference poster presentations at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023 and the 77^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine in Fall 2023

Pari worked on projects with children with autism and children with hemiplegia. In the autism project, Pari coded changes in children’s verbalization skills from early to mid to late training sessions across 8 weeks of movement-based interventions. In the study with children with hemiplegia, Pari worked on coding affective states of children during training sessions involving joystick-operated ride-on-toy training delivered as part of a 3-week summer camp.

Co-author: 3 conference poster presentations at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023, the 6^th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & Social Media in Spring 2022, and the 76^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine in Fall 2022 

Bansri joined the lab in Spring 2021. She worked on our autism study and scored children’s behavior during a standardized test of joint attention. She also assessed changes in children’s strength as well as running speed and agility following movement-based interventions. Additionally, Bansri conducted a concise systematic review/critically appraised topic of the effects of COVID on the psychosocial health and well-being of individuals with ASD.

Co-author: 1 journal publication in the Review Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders in 2023: “Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children and Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Concise Systematic Review”); 2 conference poster presentations at the 6^th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & Social Media in Spring 2022; 2 abstracts in conference proceedings (Iproceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media, 2022)

Lauren worked on the ride-on toy study with children with hemiplegia. She coded intentional and unintentional stops with objects and the levels of independence of children during navigation. She was also involved in data analysis, graphing, and interpretation of these data. Additionally, Lauren helped establish reliability for a behavioral video coding scheme involving children’s independent versus assisted navigation efforts. Lauren presented her work at the Allied Health Honors Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2022. 

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the 76^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine in Fall 2022

Honors Thesis Title: “Efficacy of joystick-operated ride-on-toy training program to promote upper extremity control in children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy”

Sarah worked on the camp studies with children with hemiplegia for 2 years, namely, 2021 & 2022. She used behavioral video coding software to code affective states of children while driving the ride-on-toy. She categorized affect as being positive (child seemed happy, cooperative, engaged, smiling, etc.) or negative (child is upset, crying, frustrated, angry, etc.). She scored data collected from a single joystick training protocol (2021) and dual joystick-operated ride-on-toy training protocol (2022).

Co-author:  3 conference poster presentations at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023 and the 76^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine in Fall 2022  

Princess joined the lab in Spring 2022 as a McNair scholar and worked on scoring data collected as part of an autism intervention trial with school-age children with autism. She specifically scored changes in prosocial behaviors of children with autism following an 8-week movement-based intervention. She was also trained to assess the fidelity of implementation procedures in our randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving children with autism. She presented her research at the McNair scholar’s research summit in Summer 2022.

Katie worked on the ride-on toy study based out of an annual summer camp for children with hemiplegia. She coded changes in children’s independent versus assisted navigational efforts across ride-on-toy training sessions over 3 weeks. She also helped establish reliability for a behavioral video coding scheme involving children’s stops and navigational efforts. Finally, she was involved in data entry and organization of longitudinal secondary data collected at the annual camp for children with hemiplegia over the last several years.

Co-author:  1 conference poster presentation at the 76^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine in Fall 2022   

Justina worked on a study with children with hemiplegia who received single joystick-based ride-on-toy training. She scored a standardized test called the Shriner’s Hospital Upper Extremity Evaluation (SHUEE) that assessed affected arm use during bimanual tasks in children with hemiplegia. She specifically assessed if the training led to improved spontaneous use of the affected arm from pretest to posttest. She also helped with data entries and data analyses of secondary data collected as part of an annual summer camp for children with hemiplegia.

Co-author:  2 conference poster presentations at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023 and the 76^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine in Fall 2022  

Bansi joined the lab for a semester in Fall 2022 and worked on 2 concise reviews on the effects of COVID-19 on the psychosocial health and well-being of individuals with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Co-author: 1 journal publication (concise systematic review) in the Review Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorder: “Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children and Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Concise Systematic Review.”

Kavita worked in the lab for a semester and was involved in analyzing data collected at a summer camp for children with hemiplegia. Our study incorporated dual joystick-operated ride-on-toy training at this camp. Kavita started coding these training videos to assess the extent of use of the affected arm for navigation during training sessions within the study.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023   

Amal worked for 2 semesters in the lab and was involved in both the autism and cerebral palsy studies. For the autism study, she trained as a student model and helped a graduate student deliver a movement-based intervention with a verbal child with autism. In the cerebral palsy study, she scored a standardized test of motor skills called the Quality of Upper Extremity Skills Test (QUEST) that was administered at pretest and posttest. She watched videos collected during a study conducted in summer 2021 and assessed if children who received single joystick ride-on-toy training improved in performance on motor skills.

Co-author: 2 conference poster presentationsat the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development in Spring 2023 and the 76^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine in Fall 2022

Megan worked to score a large dataset collected as part of our randomized controlled trial with children with autism. She scored repetitive and maladaptive behaviors of children with autism through careful observations of videos collected as part of our longitudinal clinical trial. She assessed if whole-body movement and seated play interventions provided over 8 weeks led to improvements in repetitive and maladaptive behaviors in children with autism when comparing their behaviors from early to late training weeks. Megan presented her work at the Frontiers Undergraduate Research Symposium in Fall 2021.

Co-author: 2 conference poster presentations at the 6^th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media in Spring 2022 and the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Autism Research in Spring 2022); 1 abstract published in a conference proceeding (6th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media, 2022)

During Qasim’s work in the lab, he was involved in scoring repetitive and maladaptive behaviors through careful observations of videos of children with autism collected as part of our multi-site RCT. He assessed if whole-body movement and seated play interventions provided over 8 weeks led to improvements in repetitive and maladaptive behaviors in children with autism when comparing their behaviors from early to late training weeks. Qasim presented his research at the Frontiers Undergraduate Research Symposium in Fall 2021.

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Autism Research in Spring 2022

Emily worked on data collected through a larger, multi-site randomized controlled trial that compared 3 types of movement-based interventions in school age children with autism. She specifically assessed changes in children’s motor performance on a standardized test called the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD) and compared changes in scores on the TGMD from pretest to posttest in the general movement/exercise and seated play groups. Emily presented her work at the Exercise Science Capstone Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2022.

1^st author: 1 conference poster presentation at the 6^th Annual conference of the UConn Center for mHealth and social media in Spring 2022;1 abstract in conference proceedings (Iproceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media, 2022)

Co-author: 1 conference poster presentation at the 6^th Annual conference of the UConn Center for mHealth and social media in Spring 2022; 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Iproceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media, 2022)

Honors Thesis Title: “Effects of a whole-body, structured movement-based intervention on locomotor skills in school-age children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)”

Avadhut worked on the Jellow study that involved testing the efficacy of an augmentative and alternative communication tool in a special school in Mumbai, India. As part of this study, he coded a subset of video data from children who were native speakers of Marathi. He also worked on data analyses and data visualization on this project. Thereafter, he was involved in a different project where he scored repetitive and maladaptive behaviors through careful observations of videos of children with autism collected as part of our multi-site randomized controlled trial. He assessed if whole-body movement and seated play interventions provided over 8 weeks led to improvements in repetitive and maladaptive behaviors in children with autism when comparing their behaviors from early to late training weeks. Avadhut presented his research at the Frontiers Undergraduate Research Symposium in Fall 2021.

Co-author: 1 journal publication in the Autism and Developmental Language Impairments journal in2022: “Efficacy of a novel, icon-driven Augmentative and Alternative Communication tool in promoting communication in school-age children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A pilot study”; 3 conference poster presentations at the 6^th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & Social Media in Spring 2022, the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Autism Research in Spring 2022; 1 abstract in conference proceeding (Iproceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media, 2022)

Kylie worked in the lab for one semester and helped assess the fidelity of implementation of a movement-based intervention in children with autism. She used a fidelity checklist that we had developed for the study to assess if all the interventionists adhered to the manualized study protocol and provided all the key ingredients of the interventions.

Sruthi analyzed motor performance of children with autism at pretest, posttest, and follow-up as part of an 8-week intervention study that compared effects of 2 different whole-body movement interventions to a standard-of-care seated play intervention. She specifically assessed changes in children’s motor performance on a standardized test called the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD) and compared changes in scores on the TGMD from pretest to posttest in the creative movement and seated play groups. Sruthi presented her research at the PNB Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2022.

Co-author: 2 conference poster presentations at the 6^th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media in Spring 2022; 2 abstracts in conference proceedings (Iproceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media, 2022)

Honors Thesis Title: “Effects of a play-based intervention on locomotor skills in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder”

Maddie worked on 2 major projects in the lab. In the autism study, Maddie worked on scoring a standardized test of rhythmic imitation called the Sensory Integration and Praxis test using video data. We were interested in assessing if the interventions provided in this clinical trial led to improvements in children’s praxis skills. Maddie was also involved in data collection for the autism study and worked with 2 children with autism (one verbal and one non-verbal child), for one of whom (non-verbal child) she was the lead trainer and for the other (verbal child), she was the assistant trainer. Furthermore, Maddie was involved in the qualitative focus group study assessing stakeholder perceptions around physical activity in youth with disabilities. She helped transcribe audio recordings from the focus group discussions with stakeholder groups.

1^st author: 1 conference poster presentation at the 6^th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media in Spring 2022; 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Iproceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media, 2022)  

Co-author:  2 conference poster presentations at the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Autism Research in Spring 2022

Alekya worked on the autism study in the lab. More specifically, Alekya scored children’s accuracy of imitation of static postures on a standardized test called the Sensory Integration and Praxis test using video data. We were interested in assessing if the interventions provided in this clinical trial led to improvements in children’s postural praxis skills. She scored data from children in the study across 3 sessions (pretest, posttest, and follow-up).

Co-author:  1 conference poster presentation at the 6^th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media in Spring 2022; 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Iproceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media, 2022)

Mackenzie was involved in telehealth-based data collection with children with autism. Additionally, she was involved in coding behavioral video data collected from children with autism who received a general strength and agility-based exercise program. She coded movement form and quality during a custom-designed strength test conducted during early, mid, and late weeks of training. She analyzed these data and presented her work at the Frontiers Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2022.

1^st author: 1 conference poster presentation at the 6^th Annual conference of the UConn Center for mHealth and social media in Spring 2022

Co-author: 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Iproceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media, 2022)  

Honors Thesis Title: “The effects of whole-body movement-based interventions on movement form and muscle strength in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder”

Ashlie joined the lab as a Rowe scholar and worked on a multi-site randomized controlled trial that compared the effects of 2 types of whole-body movement interventions to a control seated play intervention. More specifically, Ashlie used a behavioral coding software called Datavyu to code verbalization/vocalization of children in the creative movement group (received whole body music-based movement activities) and seated play group (seated games emphasizing fine motor skills) from early to late training sessions. Ashlie presented her work at the Nursing Undergraduate Honors Research Symposium and the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2022.

1^st author: 2 conference poster presentations at the Annual meeting of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) in Spring 2022 and the 6^th Annual conference of the UConn Center for mHealth and social media in Spring 2022

Honors Thesis Title: “Effects of Music and Movement-based interventions delivered over telehealth and face-to-face platforms on social communication skills in autistic children”

Ivanna worked on scoring rhythmic imitation skills of children with autism during a drumming imitation task.

Pranati analyzed drumming performance and rhythmic movement skills in school-age children with autism receiving an intervention that incorporated elements of music, dance, and yoga training before and after the 8-week intervention. Her video-based coding and data analyses suggested that children improved both spatial and temporal aspects of movement imitation following the training program.  

1^st author: 1 conference poster presentation at the Annual meeting of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) in Spring 2022

Honors Thesis Title: “The Effects of a Play-based Intervention on Imitation-based Rhythmic Drumming Performance of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder”

Gaganjot coded a subset of video data (from children who were native speakers of Hindi) collected from a longitudinal study conducted in India testing efficacy of a novel augmentative and alternative communication tool called Jellow Communicator developed to boost communication in non-verbal children with autism. Furthermore, Gaganjot worked on data analyses as part of a randomized controlled intervention trial with school age children with autism. He assessed fidelity of intervention implementation using pre-established fidelity checklists and guidelines to assess that the training was being provided per the study protocol across all children in the study.

Co-author: 1 journal publication in the Autism and Developmental Language Impairments journal in2022: “Efficacy of a novel, icon-driven Augmentative and Alternative Communication tool in promoting communication in school-age children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A pilot study”

Honors Thesis Title: “Assessing the efficacy of Jellow; A communicative aid for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder”

Amber joined the lab in Summer 2020 and worked on our randomized controlled trial with children with autism. She scored children’s performance on the Test of Gross Motor Development, a standardized motor assessment to evaluate their locomotor skills and a custom-designed strength test to assess children’s upper and lower body strength. Furthermore, Amber was involved in data collection with children with autism. Amber presented her work at the Physiology & Neurobiology Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2021. 

Honors Thesis Title: “Effects of a play-based intervention on locomotor skills and strength performance of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder”

Catherine joined the lab in Fall 2019 and worked on the multi-site randomized controlled trial with children with autism. She assisted in data collections, following training she ultimately led data collections with children, and she coded video data collected from the study to assess training-related changes in children’s motor and social communication skills following the different whole-body movement and seated play interventions provided as part of the study. Additionally, Catherine helped with data analyses and presented her work at the Allied Health Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2021.  

1^st author: 2 conference poster presentations at the Annual meeting of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) in Spring 2022 and the 6^th Annual conference of the UConn Center for mHealth and social media in Spring 2022; 1 abstract in conference proceedings (Iproceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media, 2022)

Co-author: 2 conference poster presentations at the 6^th Annual conference of the UConn Center for mHealth and social media in Spring 2022; 2 abstracts in conference proceedings (Iproceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the UConn Center for mHealth & social media, 2022)

Honors Thesis Title: “The Effectiveness of play-based interventions delivered face-to-face and via telehealth on motor skills of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder”

Anahi joined the lab in Spring 2021 and worked briefly on our autism randomized controlled trial study by helping to analyze movement quality and form in children with autism who received an 8-week general movement/exercise intervention.

Emma joined the lab in Summer 2019 and worked on a systematic review on the effects of creative movement and play-based interventions in children with autism spectrum disorder. She helped with searching for relevant literature, screening abstracts based on our inclusion-exclusion criteria, and systematically documenting search processes for the review. Additionally, Emma assisted with data collection for an intervention study with a child with autism.