NCT06320106

Assessment of Navigation Abilities in Children With Cerebral Palsy and Their Peers

Evaluation of Spatial Navigation Skills in Typically Developing Children and in Children With Cerebral Palsy Using a Head Mounted Display

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 26 (estimated)
• Sponsor: IRCCS Eugenio Medea · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 13 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Spatial navigation skills are very important in everyday activities and quality of life but spatial navigation abilities are not part of the standard process of assessment and rehabilitation of patients. Furthermore, it is known that children with cerebral palsy have impaired visuo-spatial competences. The main objective of this study is to evaluate and compare the spatial navigation abilities of typically developing children and of children with cerebral palsy using the "StarMaze" application delivered by means of a Head Mounted Display (HMD). The second aim is to investigate the user experience during the session. A similar application was already developed and tested in a virtual reality large scale platform whose size and cost limit the accessibility. Therefore, the assessment (and future training) of navigation abilities with affordable and easy-to-use technology such as HMD open new perspectives.

Conditions

• Cerebral Palsy
• Healthy Volunteers

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Virtual Reality baseline assessment	They undergo a baseline assessment (including cognitive level and pen and paper tests for visuo-spatial abilities). Then they perform a spatial navigation assessment with an immersive virtual reality application delivered by the Oculus Quest viewer. The spatial navigation application consists of a 5-way star-maze adapted from (Biffi et al 2020 Front. Psychol.) where the participants have to find a treasure hidden at the end of one way. The application measures both the learning of spatial information and the strategy used (egocentric or allocentric). After the session, the participants fill questionnaires related to cyber-sickness and usability of the application.

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-02-07
• Primary completion: 2026-12-31
• Completion: 2026-12-31
• First posted: 2024-03-20
• Last updated: 2025-02-26

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Italy