1. Prior Art
The following is a tabulation of some prior art that presently appears relevant:
2. Background of the Invention
At birth, an infant's body and brain is not fully developed. The corpus callosum is a neurological passageway communicating information between the left and right brain hemispheres. This allows the body to use both eyes, both ears, both hands and both feet in conjunction, as well as storing and retrieving information. Myelin, a fatty substance in the brain helps neurons send and return information to the brain, brain stem and spinal cord. Neuroscience research has shown that the parts of the brain that control movement also control cognition and emotion. Early infant physical development can improve this cerebral connection and its transmission of information. Gross motor skills including but not limiting: memory, muscle tone, strength, and hand/eye coordination can be improved through a repetitive, cross lateral movement, such as crawling at an early age. Therefore, if an infant/user spends much of its early age crawling or learning to crawl, it is equally improving its brain function/development rate.
A variety of infant walkers have been proposed—for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,326,152 (2008) to Gates, and 3,730,587 (1973) to Bloxham, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,211,607 (1993) to Fermaglish. Although these walkers allow the infant/user to move on their feet in revolutions around a central-positioned structural column, they are not, however designed to harness an infant/user from the torso, allowing the infant/user to “crawl” on both knees and both hands, bypassing an earlier stage of the infants' age which can be integral to early childhood development.
Many infant walkers (not including U.S. Pat. No. 3,730,587) may restrict the vision of the infants lower limbs do to a device obstruction such as a tray or even the supporting means itself, resulting in a lesser development of hand/eye coordination. In addition to visual obstructions, such infant walkers with height settings are not elasticized, permitting the infant to bounce and build up the much needed physical strength to later walk independently. Because of these aforementioned restrictions, the infant may become “comfortable” sitting in the walker seat until it is not even attempting to walk preventing the intended developmental purpose.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,569,532 (1986) to Mirkarimi enables an infant that already has proper strength to crawl, to roam freely near unobstructed locations such as a stairway, causing a dangerous environment for the infant. If an infant has not yet built sufficient strength to crawl, the infant will have the task of carrying the weight of the device thereof; resulting in additional strength needed to utilize the device, but nevertheless all the crawling and walking aids suffer from a number of disadvantages:
(a) By not allowing infant/user to suspend in a “crawling” position with a padded harness around infants torso, walkers prevent the infant from moving on both hands and both knees in a locomotive, cross-lateral manner. This prevents walkers from improving trunk muscles and coordination of all four limbs.
(b) Walkers with stationary seating, that is, walkers that do not allow the infant to bounce up and down can promote the infant to just sit in the seat making movement of their legs less desirable.
(c) Prior walkers that do allow the infant to suspend in walking position have many more required parts to complete the intended function of device due to weight balance needed to support the infant, resulting in a higher cost of materials and manufacturing.
(d) Prior walkers are not designed to be as freely adjustable as the present embodiment. This lack of adjustment restricts the infant to a specific height making the device less accommodating to the variable heights, lengths, and weight of each respective infant/user.
(e) Walkers that restrict the vision of the infant/user's legs can prevent the him/her from recognizing that it can control it's legs to move about freely.
(f) Prior walkers with central-positioned structures that are not detachable from center column to base, making it less portable.
(g) Prior walkers with central-positioned structures do not have a guide wheel that rolls on a plate on top of center column requiring additional means of function to support weight of infant.
The present invention overcomes the above mentioned drawbacks and limitations by providing a crawling aid to assist the infant in crawling, enabling both sides of the brain to function in concert improving the corpus callosum at a much earlier and important brain development age. In addition, the present embodiment allows for an attachment to support the infant around the crotch and waist to then allow the infant/user to walk/jump in revolutions around the center column.
While the infant is held up by a padded harness holding its torso in a conventional “crawling” position, the infant is able to crawl around the base and column in revolutions exploring its surroundings, simultaneously visualizing its locomotive movements-improving its grasp of motor development and binocular vision. For example, if the supervising user assisting the infant in the crawling apparatus, places a toy just out of reach of the infant, the infant can attempt to move to the toy. The infant will later realize that she can control all of her limbs and start to bounce until she performs a locomotive act of crawling. While the infant is moving, she can see the toy and her eyes will begin to focus and improve binocular vision. while the infant is also able to “bounce” building up much needed muscles for a later walking development stage. By being elastically suspended in the cushioned harness over the padded floor, the infants carrying weight is reduced making it easier for the infant to push off the padded floor in an attempt to crawl. When the infant is not in the apparatus, she may remember the position she was in when in using the apparatus, and attempt to crawl on her own.
A pivot arm is connected to the top of a bearing assembly. The bearing assembly is situated on the top-center of a plate. A guide wheel is connected to bottom of pivot arm to roll on top of outer end of plate, which supports the bearing assembly by carrying a portion of infant/user weight around the center column. This aids the infant/user by reducing the load weight of their body so the infant/user can move with ease, while not obstructing the vision of the infant/user. The present embodiment can allow any height of harness within elasticized cord limitations by locking said cord to desired length.
In addition to assisting the infant in crawling, the present embodiment can also attach a jumper seat. The jumper seat has cords attached to top of seat in both front and rear of jumper. The upper portion of jumper cords are connected to a fixed cord support embodiment with means of connecting to adjustable cord. On one side of the cord support is a handle that is used to lift jumper seat to attach to adjustable cord.
By using this device, the infant, at a much earlier age than that of walkers can improve numerous areas of early childhood development such as gross/fine motor skills, binocular vision, muscle strength and space/depth perception. The attachable jumper seat allows the infant to bounce up and down and walk around the device. There are no obstructions to prevent infant from seeing its left and right legs moving in concert. The Infant and also move laterally because of a bearing assembly placed above the pivot arm bearing assembly on outer end of pivot arm, the infant can turn its body in a full 360 degree radius allowing both clockwise and counterclockwise rotating travel. The infant can utilize this invention from-when it's old enough to lift it's head-to when the infant is able to walk on its own, making the life of this device far longer than most walker apparatuses readily available.
For a more in depth understanding of present invention reference should be made to the detailed description of preferred and alternative embodiments and associated drawings wherein:
a is a perspective view of an additional pivot arm that raises the height of the elasticized cord embodiment for jumper attachment.
a is a perspective of the harness support connectivity of present jumper embodiment.
a is an exploded view of an individual piece of padded flooring (and how center of piece covers sub plate if sub plate is used).
Referring more specifically to
A column 13 is preferably made of metal, plastic or wood material with a circular, square or oval shape. At the lower end of column 13 is a reduced column 401 made of same material that inserts into lower column base 402 wherein adjustable knob 404 pushes into reduced column to removably lock column 13 in place.
Referring more specifically to
The Pivot arm bracket 16 is hingedly bolted to the upper bearing housing 15. Upper bearing housing 15 is connected to lower bearing housing 21 using a bolt 22 wherein upper bearing housing 15 pivots in revolution on conventional bearings 31. Lower bearing housing 21 is fixedly bolted to upper guide plate 14 using conventional nuts and bolts 30.
A guide wheel housing embodiment 33 is fixedly bolted to pivot arm bracket 16 using conventional nuts and bolts through throughholes 34 to outer end walls of the pivot arm bracket 16 wherein guide wheel 35 will roll on top of the upper guide plate 14 to support the weight of the infant user as it rotates.
Referring more specifically to
Referring more specifically to
An elasticized cord comprising two sides 51 and 62 connected to upper cord housing 18 wherein stationary side 51 is fixedly held in place by a clamp 60 at upper end of upper stationary cord opening 59 suspending downward to lower cord housing 20 through lower stationary cord opening 55 onto lower groove of pulley assembly 54. Adjustable end of elasticized cord 62 extends upwardly through lower adjustable cord opening 56 to interior of upper cord housing 18 wherein adjustable end of elasticized cord 62 extends through adjustable cord opening 58 which gradually reduces downward to a lesser opening 63 enabling adjustable end of elasticized cord 62 to lock in place after obtaining desired length. A handle embodiment 57 is connected to adjustable end of elasticized cord 62 by a clamp to allow ease of use when adjusting, and locking elasticized cord onto upper cord housing lock 63.
A harness 71 shown in
Referring to
The padded jumper seat 300 is preferably made of polyester, canvas, wool or any washable material. The jumper cords 302 are fixedly connected to jumper seat 300 by a cord support 301 that receives jumper ropes 302 at upper end and are preferably sewn or stitched together, then rope housing 301 is sewn or stitched to jumper seat 300.
Referring to
Referring to
Connected to the sub plate 10 is a column 13 preferably made of metal, plastic or wood material with a circular, square or oval shape that is attached to the center of sub plate 10 at the lower end preferably by weldment with the upper guide plate 14 attached to the upper end of column 13.
As shown particularly in
This application claims the benefit of provisional patent application Ser. No. 61/270,252, filed in 2009 Jul. 3 by the present inventors
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
691494 | Schindler | Jan 1902 | A |
1073918 | Mason | Sep 1913 | A |
2499164 | Richardson | Feb 1950 | A |
3049350 | Walker | Aug 1962 | A |
3730587 | Bloxham et al. | May 1973 | A |
4569532 | Mirkarimi | Feb 1986 | A |
4844452 | Tomosky | Jul 1989 | A |
5211607 | Fermaglish | May 1993 | A |
5458550 | Braim et al. | Oct 1995 | A |
7326152 | Gates | Feb 2008 | B2 |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20110009245 A1 | Jan 2011 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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61270252 | Jul 2009 | US |