Congratulations to CanChild Research Engagement Strategist Rachel Martens for receiving the 2021 Children's Healthcare Canada Patient and Family Leadership Award. The award recognizes a patient, parent, or caregiver champion who has contributed to improving the patient and family experience in Canada. At CanChild, Rachel works with the Family Engagement in Research Course and promotes knowledge mobilization through the Parents Partnering in Research online group and Luke’s Legacy Family Research Rounds.

The Health Hub in Transition Team is hosting a Meet the Expert Series featuring Karen Johnston, a Registered Nurse and Nurse Practitioner who co-developed the Well on Your Way Transition Website.

The website's goal is to help youth and their families get ready for the transition to adult healthcare. It has specific sections for youth, parents, and healthcare professionals designed to provide information and resources tailored to their needs.

If you want to learn more or ask questions about the transition to adult healthcare—this event is for you! Register now to join.

We are seeking a curious, creative, organized, and tenacious colleague with pediatric research and/or practice experience to complete their PhD degree with Dr. Mary Khetani and the Children’s Participation in Environment Research Lab (CPERL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, starting Fall 2022. The successful applicant will be immersed in an active extramurally funded project that employs a mixed-methods design to elucidate mechanisms of family-centred care coordination in early intervention, from which the candidate will gain readiness to design their dissertation.

The READYorNot™ BBD Trial is looking for youth aged 15 to 17 with autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, FASD or spina bifida living in Ontario, Alberta, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia to help them study the MyREADY Transition™ BBD App.

The App was co-designed with patients and families to help youth prepare for the transition from pediatric to adult health care.

Contact Barb Galuppi at galuppi@mcmaster.ca.

A national team of researchers is conducting a study to understand if the Better Nights, Better Days program improves sleep, mental health, wellbeing, and family resiliency in children and parents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Contact bnbd.participate@dal.ca

Most children with hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy (CP) can run, jump, and get around independently, but they can also experience non-motor impairments that affect their everyday life. The skills needed to participate in and adapt to activities of everyday life are called adaptive behaviour. In this study, we explored factors related to the adaptive behaviour of children with hemiplegic CP. Using information collected from 59 children, we found that a third scored below the normal range on a measure of adaptive behaviour. Poorer communication ability and an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis in addition to CP were associated with lower adaptive skills. The findings suggest that clinicians and researchers need to look beyond motor functioning when working with individuals with CP. Authors: Abdel Malek S, Mesterman R, Switzer L, DiRezze B, deVeber G, Fehlings D, Lunsky Y, Phoenix M, Gorter JW. Eur J Paediatr Neurol. 2021 Nov 18;36:19-25. doi: 10.1016/j.ejpn.2021.11.005.

Although delays in motor development are not traditionally considered a core characteristic of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), recent studies have highlighted its importance as a component of the ASD phenotype during the first three years. To examine relationships between motor development and ASD, a total of 675 children participated in this study (499 infants with an older sibling with ASD and 176 infants with no known family history of ASD). Results showed that children with lower fine and gross motor scores over the first three years of life had lower expressive and receptive language scores, higher ASD symptom severity scores, and were more likely to receive a diagnosis of ASD.

Authors: Patterson JW, Armstrong V, Duku E, Richard A, Franchini M, Brian J, Zwaigenbaum L, Bryson SE, Sacrey LR, Roncadin C, Smith IM. Autism Res. 2021 Nov 26. doi: 10.1002/aur.2641.

Many children with cerebral palsy (CP) experience anterior drooling that significantly affects their physical and emotional health, social interactions, and self-esteem. A treatment approach that holds promise in improving swallowing and reducing drooling in children with CP is the Lee Silverman Voice Treatment LOUD (LSVT LOUD®). This paper presents a protocol to evaluate the effects of LSVT LOUD® on (1) drooling severity and impact, (2) swallowing and feeding competency, and (3) speech intelligibility at a single word, sentence and conversational level. The anticipation is that this protocol will assist other researchers using a single case experimental design method to evaluate the effects of interventions in the early phases of clinical outcome research. Authors: McInerney M, Imms C, Carding PN, Reddihough DS. Contemp Clin Trials Commun. 2021 Nov 17;24:100872. doi: 10.1016/j.conctc.2021.100872.