Virtual Reality for the
Efficient Treatment of Infants
with Feeding Difficulties
Our Vision
Feeding problems and the associated crying of the infant are a major cause of
anxiety for parents. Dealing with this anxiety is estimated to cost the National
Health Service (NHS) approximately £70 million a year in GP and health workers
time and effort.
Feeding problems may be symptoms of difficulty in the caregiver–infant
relationship. Furthermore, understanding a child’s response to food is a key
part of effective feeding and is a central issue in early childhood development.
It is estimated that 25% of otherwise normally developing infants have feeding
problems. In addition, if a child’s feeding difficulties are not dealt with when
the child is young they are likely to become ingrained.
We aim to significantly improve a new parent’s understanding and the treatment
of infants with feeding disorders by our novel online Virtual Reality solution.
Our Approach
We are developing a unique virtual environment for Cognitive Behaviour
Therapy, which will be built on information such as the right environmental
conditions for meal times, eating distractions, correct positioning during
the feeding, the adoptive and social skills of child, acquired and provided
by physicians and psychologists for parent’s successful experience with our
application.
We aim to develop a stand-alone application to conduct a pilot study and
series of experiments in conjunction with new parents in order to build
preliminary VR system. All the experiments are discussed with clinical
psychologists and paediatricians. We will compare how different levels of
quality and multimodal aspects of a virtual reality system may influence
the users.
Our Partners
• University of Warwick Psychology Department
Our Competencies
In our visualisation group we have a full set of
skills for creating multi-modal high-fidelity virtual
environments.
Collaboration with the Department of Psychology
also provides a highly professional and skilled
background for our research.
Contact Details
Alena Jancigova
Warwick Digital Laboratory
a.jancigova@warwick.ac.uk