Congratulations to CanChild Scientist Dr. BJ Cunningham and the C-BiLLT Research Team for receiving a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The project aims to understand the necessary conditions to implement an accurate language assessment tool for children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) in the Canadian clinical context.

To ensure children and families in Canada have access to appropriate assessments to inform their service delivery, this study will explore the necessary conditions for implementing the C-BiLLT in the Canadian clinical context. The team will also develop training materials to support the C-BiLLT implementation.

Co-Principal Investigators: BJ Cunningham and Tom Chau

Co-Investigators and Collaborators: Brenda Agnew, Beata Batorowicz, Jael Bootsma, Johanna Geytenbeek, Jan Willem Gorter, Danijela Grahovac, Olaf Kraus de Camargo, Dayle McCauley, Kristine Stadskleiv, Kim Oostrom, and Andrea Cross

The 'F-words' is a strengths-based approach that focuses on six key areas of child development: Functioning, Family, Fitness, Fun, Friends, and Future.

In this video podcast, Dr. Peter Rosenbaum discusses his editorial about the 'F-words' published in the Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology (DMCN) journal. He also shared how the 'F-words' tools, resources, and uptake have grown since its first publication in 2011.

If you would like more information, please contact Sarah Earl at wellman@mcmaster.ca

We want to hear the voices of people who have an insider’s view.

Are you a pediatric service provider who also has lived experience as a parent of a child who receives medical or developmental services? Researchers at CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research, McMaster University are conducting a study funded by CIHR about parents’ experiences with healthcare providers, and we would like to hear from parents who are also healthcare providers themselves.

If you have a child/youth who has been receiving developmental, medical or behavioural services (for example occupational, physical, speech or behavioural therapy) for at least 6 months in the past 5 years, we would like to invite you for a one-hour confidential conversation about your experiences with healthcare delivery.

Participants will receive a $25 gift card as a token of our appreciation.

The foundation for lifelong health begins during the first five years of a child’s life. When young children ages 0-5 years participate in activities that take place at home, daycare/preschool, and in the community, they can experience healthy living and learn new skills.

The Young Children’s Participation and Environment Measure (YC-PEM), completed by the parent or primary caregiver, examines those activities in terms of participation and environment. The results are then shared with the child’s health professional and therapy team to determine any adjustments to be made to help reach goals.

This case study describes the dissemination strategies used to increase knowledge and awareness about the “F-words for Child Development” (Function, Family, Fitness, Fun, Friends, and Future). Since the original F-words paper was published over 10 years ago, a team of families and researchers have been working to spread the F-words to families, healthcare providers, educators, and organizations around the world. To do this, multiple strategies were used, including the development of educational materials, presentations at educational meetings, and educational outreach visits. The authors used the Diffusion of Innovations theory to understand and inform this process to disseminate the F-words. Authors: Cross A, Soper AK, Tomas V, Grahovac D, Brocklehurst J, Kay D, Baptiste S, Gorter JW, Rosenbaum P. Child Care Health Dev. 2022 Feb 6. doi: 10.1111/cch.12983.

This study aims to evaluate the content of the Youth and young-adult Participation and Environment Measure (Y-PEM), a self-reported measure that captures the participation of individuals (aged 12-30) with physical disabilities at home, school, community, and the workplace. Individuals with physical disabilities and experts who participated in the interviews recommended adding activities specific to this age group, such as dating, caregiving, preparing meals, and employment. Results suggest that Y-PEM can provide information about participating in activities that prepare youth or young adults for the job market. Y-PEM can also help clinicians identify environmental factors that impact participation across different settings. Authors: Shahin S, DiRezze B, Ahmed S, Anaby D. Disabil Rehabil. 2022 Feb 3:1-13. doi: 10.1080/09638288.2022.2030809.

This chapter examines the applications and contributions of ethnographic approaches in children’s rehabilitation. Central to the authors’ argument is the idea that ethnography is a sensibility, meaning, a particular mindset that both informs, and flows from, ethnographic methods of data collection. We show how ethnographic sensibility is deployed in existing literature, we consider its potential and limitations, and we show how it can be cultivated in children’s rehabilitation and the health sciences more broadly. Authors: Pozniak K, King G. In: Hayre C.M., Muller D.J., Hackett P.M.W. (eds) Rehabilitation in Practice. Springer, Singapore. 2022 Jan 1. doi: 10.1007/978-981-16-8317-6_8