Intervention

Challenge Kids with autism commonly struggle to regulate their emotions and handle the day-to-day stressors in their lives. As a result, they are at increased risk of depression, anxiety disorders and anger issues. Project Summary Secret Agent Society is a cognitive behavioural intervention designed to help school-aged children with autism “crack the code” of emotions [...]

Challenge Many children living with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are hypersensitive to certain sounds. When children are exposed to these sounds, they may be very distressed. This distress causes them to react with behaviours such as covering their ears, yelling or screaming or running out of the room to avoid the sound. Schools’ approaches for [...]

Challenge Following an FASD diagnostic assessment, individuals will receive a list of recommendations about services, supports and interventions with which to connect. The challenge is that the recommendations are often lengthy, may not always be understandable to families, and are provided and explained at at time when individuals and families are feeling overwhelmed. Project Summary [...]

Challenge The ability to better characterize the cellular mechanisms underlying brain dysfunction in FASD is vital to treat the disorder better. The purpose of this project is to provide a detailed understanding of these mechanisms as a means of possibly identifying novel targets for future drug development. Project Summary Studies have shown that prenatal alcohol [...]

Challenge A gap exists in policy and practice within child welfare systems, where infants in care are at risk for developmental delays and mental health issues. A screening and intervention program for these children is aiming to change the standard of care for this at-risk population. Project Summary The screening program targeted infants aged 0 [...]

Challenge For most children with cerebral palsy (CP), their condition began before birth, likely due to a condition resulting in the delayed growth of the fetus. But ground-breaking findings from the CP research team, led by neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Fehlings, have demonstrated that neural stem cell therapy could be an option for treating CP. Project [...]

Challenge New therapies for individuals with cerebral palsy (CP)  with commercialization potential are emerging, but face barriers to a successful rollout. The CP Discovery Project evaluated two interventions. One was a videogame-linked stationary bicycle designed to improve fitness and social interaction. The other was a trial of direct electrical stimulation paired with therapy to improve [...]

Challenge Once one can confirm the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, most Canadian provinces and territories offer government-funded interventions. However, because of long wait lists—first for diagnosis and then for treatment—intervening during the early years of life is virtually impossible for many families. Project Summary Network researchers aimed to change this reality when they developed [...]

Challenge Self-regulation is the ability to attain, change, or maintain an appropriate level of alertness for a specific task or situation. Being able to do this is critical in our everyday functioning, but it's something with which people with FASD struggle. Drs. Carmen Rasmussen and Jacqueline Pei (University of Alberta) have implemented a modified version [...]

Challenge The words we use to describe disabilities reflect and affect how we perceive them. There has been a lot of discussions about which words are the least stigmatizing and the most empowering. However, any benefits that come out of these conversations might not always extend to people with other native languages, who make up [...]