# Role of congenital heart defects in motor skills and language acquisition of infants with Down syndrome

> **NIH NIH R21** · GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $203,140

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Down syndrome (DS) is the most common genetic condition and causes significant development delays and
weaknesses in the motor, cognitive, and language domains. About one half of infants with DS have congenital
heart defects (CHD), resulting in slower development in infants with DS and CHD (i.e., DS+CHD) than those
with DS without CHD (i.e., DS-CHD). Most of the earlier research used a cross-sectional design to compare the
two groups by focusing on the attainment of milestones. Understanding of the process of motor and language
skills (i.e., developmental trajectory) remains limited in infants with DS. The objectives of this proposal are to use
mobile technology (smart devices and secure cloud storage) to collect motor (sitting and arm movement) and
language (babbling) data in a home environment, employ computer vision software OpenPose to the motor data
and behavioral coding to the language data, and examine motor-language interrelation in infants with DS+CHD
and DS-CHD. Our central hypothesis is that sitting posture, rhythmic arm movement, and babbling are correlated
in infants with DS, and infants with DS+CHD will show delayed acquisition and higher variability of sitting posture,
rhythmic arm movement, and babbling, and a weaker motor-language interaction than those with DS-CHD. Aim
1: Validate mobile technology and computer vision in registering development trajectory of sitting posture and
rhythmic arm movement in infants with DS+CHD and DS-CHD from 6 to 15 months of age. We will recruit 36
infants aged 6 months with DS+CHD and DS-CHD (n=18 in each). We will train the parents to collect 5-minute
data of infant sitting and arm movement once a week using a provided iPad at their home. We will use OpenPose
(computer vision software for pose estimation) to analyze trunk position and rhythmic arm movement. We will
compare the trunk and arm data to that we collected from our monthly home visits to validate the application of
mobile technology and computer vision in infants with DS. We hypothesize that trunk and arm data obtained with
mobile technology and computer vision will serve as valid tools to register sitting posture and rhythmic arm
movement and that DS+CHD will show a later acquisition of trunk control and arm movement than DS-CHD. Aim
2: Characterize interrelation between motor and language skills in infants with DS. We will record 10 minutes of
parent-infant interaction at our monthly home visits to assess the emergence of babbling via behavioral coding.
We will conduct multiple linear regression analysis with covariates of participants’ characteristics to examine an
interaction between motor (trunk position and rhythmic arm movement) and language (babbling) in infants with
DS. Further, we will utilize functional data analysis (e.g., function-on-function linear regression) to investigate
interrelations (predictor and response) and causal effect of trunk position, rhythmic arm movement, and babbling.
We hypothesize that t...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10877280
- **Project number:** 1R21HD115132-01
- **Recipient organization:** GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Seyda Ozcaliskan
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $203,140
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-06-01 → 2026-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10877280

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10877280, Role of congenital heart defects in motor skills and language acquisition of infants with Down syndrome (1R21HD115132-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10877280. Licensed CC0.

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