An infant, who has apnea and had a cerebral vascular accident as a newborn, is delayed in her fine motor skills and physical motor skills. She also favors her left hand while not using her right hand as much as she should.Types of cognitive learning while physical therapy is helping, the parents are very, busy and the physical therapist office is far away from their home. The family is interested in an activity play center that can engage with their child’s motor skills and encourage her to use her right hand, implementing some of her physical therapy exercises.Types of cognitive learning with this activity center, the family is hoping to be able to increase their daughter’s motor skills and use of her right hand from the comfortability of their own home.Types of cognitive learning

An infant, who had a cerebral vascular accident as a newborn, is delayed in her fine motor skills and physical motor skills. She also favors her left hand while not using her right hand as much as she should.Types of cognitive learning one of the biggest goals of the project is to help the child develop her finger movements to better her sensory and motor skills. Secondly, creating activities that incorporate physical therapy exercises into the activity center to progress the child’s right-hand use is another goal of the project.Types of cognitive learning additionally, the activities must be fun and captivating for not just a year, but for several years to come.

The current market for children’s activity centers consists mostly of smaller sized boxes or crates covered in toys targeting a general population of kids.Types of cognitive learning these boxes target the largest group of children for obvious marketing purposes. This leaves more expensive, custom activity boxes as the only option for kids with more special needs.Types of cognitive learning with the design specifications given, the best solution is for a custom box to be built directly to one child’s needs. This will allow for each device on the box to be beneficial to the physical therapy and long-term growth of the child.Types of cognitive learning our goal for this activity center is to use every opportunity to include devices that involve aspects of what our child works on with physical therapy, while also being entertaining so that the child enjoys doing those things.Types of cognitive learning

We proposed a wooden box for one concept, this design would allow for four surfaces to be used for mechanisms and the top surface to be used for decorations as that was included in our design specifications.Types of cognitive learning the box design can be fitted with handles around the perimeter to encourage our child to walk more. The handles would also make transportation much easier.Types of cognitive learning this design would be relatively cheap as it uses more common materials than if it were made of metal. The construction of the box will be more durable than plastic which could be important as it would need to withstand minor damage from regular use.Types of cognitive learning size 2x2x3

Another concept involves a single, hangable board. This design would be made of wood allowing for resistance to wear and cost reduction.Types of cognitive learning this would allow for great portability but also reduce the surface area available to place mechanisms on by 75% (assuming the board would be the same size as one side of the box) compared to design concept one.Types of cognitive learning the board would need to be thicker to hide the screws and nails holding the mechanisms to the board, but that should not decrease the portability too much.Types of cognitive learning the wall design easily allows for the supervising adult to observe how the child interacts with the devices.

Our final design consists of an inverted box.Types of cognitive learning this design would be made of wood and other common materials. This design would allow for seven total surfaces to be used for mechanisms, or four if we were to only use the inside surfaces for devices and then use the outside for decorations.Types of cognitive learning an advantage of this concept is that devices can be attached to the roof of the box requiring the child to look up and reach for things which have its own therapeutic advantages.Types of cognitive learning finally, this design would allow for the outside of the box to be used for decorations which were a major design specification from the client.Types of cognitive learning

Also note: we thought about other design concepts such a smaller device to implement one or two physical therapy exercises, but ultimate we felt it couldn’t be as useful as a larger box design.Types of cognitive learning another thought we had was to create an immersive play area, but with her being so young and the family wanting to be able to ensure the safety of the child and make it easily movable.Types of cognitive learning

The project was somewhat hard and challenging, but very rewarding. We had to use a variety of tools and understand how a machine shop functions to complete the project.Types of cognitive learning working as a team was paramount to getting the job done. While it took a while to get going, once we got down to business and were focused we were able to tackle and complete many objectives.Types of cognitive learning being able to watch the little girl enjoy and play with the activity center made all the hard work and hours put in worth it.