nir-vana innovation network

The Spanish research group is an interdisciplinary and interuniversity group in the areas of knowledge of evolutionary and educational psychology, the area of personality, psychological evaluation and treatment, medicine, and computing engineering. This Spanish research group has a wide experience in the application of machine learning techniques in the study of the use of active methodologies in health and belongs to a medium-sized Spanish university founded in 1994, housing others 76 research groups more.

The university has been very active in several European reseach and innovation programmes (H2020 and previous, LIFE…); with the role of coordinator in 22 projects and over 8.4 M€ overall EU funding received. Currently, this university participates in 26 on-going projects (in 12 of them as coordinator) in 8 different EU programmes with an average of 1.7 M€ of EU funding in the last 4 years.

The objective of the technology offered is the automation, registration and evaluation of the functional skills detection scale in users with ages of evolutionary development of 0-6 years and, as a result of the evaluation, the specification of the priority functional areas for intervention therapy, through a web application.

This application allows the correction and interpretation of the user's development in the 11 dimensions of functional analysis that the scale measures: autonomy in feeding, personal care and hygiene, autonomy in dressing and undressing, toilet control, functional mobility, communication and language, social interaction skills, interactive and symbolic game, routines of daily life, adaptive behavior and attention.

In addition, it provides a personalized intervention program for each user that covers the different functional areas in which affectation has been detected.

The application created consists of functional skills development scale, an algorithm for correction and interpretation through visualization graphs and a software for recording, interpretation and visualization of the results of the user's evaluation to ages 0-6 years in functional skills. This software allows the intervention professional to carry out quarterly evaluations on the development of users, both individually and in groups. All this information is represented in graphics that can be exported to png and / or pdf format. Also, it supports the export of evaluation records to excel sheets. Likewise, the application is offered in a bilingual Spanish-English format.

Potential applications of the software created are as follow:
- the automation of the measurement of functional abilities in users with developmental ages 0-6 years.
- specification of the priority functional areas for therapeutic intervention in the user.
- individualized monitoring of evaluation in the acquisition of said functional abilities in a user and/or a group of users in education or therapy centers in development ages 0-6 years.
- chronological age may be higher, which is why the radius of intervention is also extended to people with involutive pathologies such as senile, presenile dementias or affectations in the areas of autonomy.
- the use would also be applicable in nursing homes or rehabilitation centers for spinal cord injuries, with the aim of studying the evolution of these functional abilities in pathologies such as presenile and senile dementias, stroke, spinal cord injuries, etc.

The researcher group is interested in international cooperation under commercial agreement, financial agreement and/or license agreement, with other research organization and universities, private companies or government administrations, and other centers such as nursing homes, modular injury rehabilitation centers, etc.

In addition, the research group offers tests of new applications and/or adaptation to specific needs and the possibility of further development.

Advantages & innovations

The main innovations and advantages of this therapeutic intervention web application program are: • Allows the automation of registration and interpretation, which facilitates its use by professionals from early care centers, specific special education centers and other centers that carry out interventions at these ages. • The interpretation of the results occurs practically in real time to know the functional development of the user. • Allows the individualized monitoring of each user and the comparison of the development in the functional abilities of different users of the same center. • The technologies used for the development of the web application facilitate high-quality visualizations and interactivity and allow the storage of data in file bases or in the cloud. • The technology makes it possible to carry out more complex statistical analyzes with the application of supervised machine learning techniques (classification and / or regression) and unsupervised (clustering) through the export of files to more powerful statistical packages. In particular, classification techniques are very useful for the personalized learning proposal. • Its use makes it possible to enhance the efficiency and profitability of the resources of the center where it is implemented. • The application is oriented to a desktop environment due to its ease of installation and necessary resources. • The expansion allows the development of personalized therapeutic intervention programs in the areas in which affectation has been detected.

Stage of development

Prototype available for demonstration

Partner sought

Commercial agreement with technical assistance and license agreement - Type: private and public organizations that are related to the disability care sector, depending or not on public administrations. - Activity: experience in the early care centers, specific special education centers and other centers that carry out interventions at these ages. - Role: application of the web program for the early detection of disability due to problems in evolutionary or involutive development. Improve assistance to people in need Financial agreement - Type: private and public organizations that are related to the disability care sector, depending or not on public administration. Also academia and other private entities. - Activity: financing of social inclusion projects - Role: financial funding for centers for people with disabilities.