Access technologies can help people with severe motor disabilities to communicate. However, many of the available devices do not work for people who have little control over the movement of their limbs. We want to develop new access technologies for children and youth with cerebral palsy using one or more facial gestures (like tongue movement, eyebrow movements, or smiling).

Do you have a child with cerebral palsy and complex communication needs? Consider participating in our research study about novel access technologies based on oral and facial gestures!

We are looking for participants who:

• are between 4 and 19 years of age;
• have cerebral palsy (GMFCS level IV or V);
• understand cause and effect;
• are looking for a new access technology;
• have good control of at least one facial movement, or of their voice;
• understand/speak English.

We will design a custom technology for your child using signals from their neck and/or face. For this, we will ask you and your child to come to Holland Bloorview and test different versions of the new technology until a good device is developed.

We will train your child at Holland Bloorview or at school over 10 weeks, once a week for 1 hour or twice a week for 30 minutes, so that they can learn to use the new device. Additionally, we will train you and your child’s teacher regarding the device and ways that it can be used at home and at school.

We will also ask you and your child to complete 9 evaluation sessions to assess their current access technology and their new device. These sessions will take approximately 30 minutes and will involve playing computer games and completing questionnaires.

While there may not be any direct benefits to your child, we hope the results of this study will help us develop new access solutions for children and youth with cerebral palsy.

Ongoing until recruitment is completed.

If you are interested in participating or have any questions, please contact Fanny Hotzé at fhotze@hollandbloorview.ca or 416-425-6220 x6459.

We are working with a private company to develop brain activity sensing applications. This study will evaluate a simple task related to focused attention with up to 20 participants wearing the Muse sensing headband and another electrical brain activity sensing system.

Do you want to help develop a system that could be used to improve focus, concentration and stress management? Consider participating in a research study about the characterization of brain states.

We are looking for able-bodied individuals who are between 18 and 40 years of age, have no motor disorder, have normal or corrected-to-normal audition, can read and write in English, do not practice meditation on a regular basis and have no health issues including alcoholism, psychotic depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, or any condition that may require them to regularly take medications that may cause drowsiness or affect their brain signals.

Study participants will attend three research sessions during which they will be asked to perform a simple focusing task (e.g., counting their breathing cycles...) and, when they hear a chime, to press a button if they were mind wandering or do nothing if they were focused on their task. During those sessions, we will record their brain activity using sensors placed on their heads, as well as their heart rate and respiration rate using a sensor secured on one of their fingers and a respiration belt placed around their chests. Participants will also be asked to fill a short questionnaire at the beginning of each session and after each task.

Participants will receive a small token of appreciation to thank them for their time.

Ongoing until recruitment is completed.

If you are interested in participating or have any questions, please contact Fanny Hotzé at fhotze@hollandbloorview.ca or 416-425-6220 x6459.

Video games can make hand and arm therapy activities more fun for kids. We would like to explore the potential of these technologies for being used in video games that might motivate physical therapy in kids with cerebral palsy. We would like to see if these technologies can detect movements involved in arm and hand therapy and how we can build fun and engaging video games that make use of them.

Do you wish hand and arm therapies could be more fun? Participate in the design and evaluation of novel technologies for playing video games for upper body therapies.

We are looking for participants who:

• Have cerebral palsy or hemiplegia
• Are between 8 and 16 years of age
• Have some difficulty handling objects (levels (i) to (iii) on the manual abilities classification system)
• Move independently using a mobility aid such as a cane, walker, or wheelchair (levels (i) to (iii) on the gross motor function classification scale)
• Arms have not been treated with botulinum toxin in the last three months
• Do not have a history of epilepsy
• Have typical or corrected to typical vision and hearing for video game play
• Can answer questions in English about preferences

• Your child will participate in a set of design sessions at Holland Bloorview where we will have group discussions and evaluations of video games
• In these sessions, you/your child may be asked to play a multi-player game with another participant in a dyad
• We will conduct multiple sessions over the course of a year, lasting maximum 150 minutes each
• In these sessions we will ask your child what he/she likes or doesn’t like about the video games we will be developing and how he/she would like to change the games
• During a session, participants’ parents/guardians may be asked to participate in a brief interview regarding their children’s rehabilitation therapy

Participants will receive a small token of appreciation to thank them for their time. We will cover TTC or parking.

To ask questions or to sign up, please contact: Marcela Correa, mcorrea@hollandbloorview.ca. 

We are currently developing a wearable biofeedback system for use with lower-limb prostheses. Once developed the biofeedback system could serve as a training tool for lower-limb amputees to improve gait and balance. This study aims to help us better understand how to design such device.

Each participant will attend two 1-hour sessions at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital. During the experiments, you will be wearing a “mock socket” with small vibrating motors on your thigh. You will be instructed to react to vibration, flex and extend your right knee.

We are looking for able-bodied adults to participate in our study. To participate for this study, you must be above the age of 18, have no significant skin damage on your right thigh, be able to fully flex and extend your right knee, have no neurological disease that affects your reaction, have a thigh circumference that fits our mock socket, and be able to communicate in English.

Participants will receive a $20 gift card at the end of each session as well as compensation for public transit or parking. Participation in this study is voluntary and participation will not affect relationships with Holland Bloorview or the University of Toronto.

Ongoing until recruitment is completed.

If you are interested in participating in this study or have additional questions, please contact Sam Shi at shuai.shi@mail.utoronto.ca or (647) 521-5842 with your interest, and he will get back to you shortly. Contacting us does not obligate you to participate in this study.

Physical activity improves social life, quality of life, and health. There is evidence that youth with physical disabilities do not try as many different activities as youth who do not have disabilities. One reason might be that they may have lower confidence in their ability to keep their balance during certain activities or settings as a result of their disability.  Right now, we have no way to measure balance confidence in youth.  We think that therapists need to be able to measure balance confidence to know what to work on in their treatment to help youth become more active in physical activities.

As a result, we are making a questionnaire for youth ages 9 to 18 years to be able to tell us how confident they are about their balance. Later on, we will test our new questionnaire to make sure it measures balance confidence accurately, and look at how balance confidence is related to actual balance and participation in physical activities.

We are looking for:

• Children and teens 9 to 18 years old with a physical disability and who are able to walk on their own with or without use of an aid (such as a walker or cane)

• Need to be able to communicate verbally in English (can use a communication device)

• A 60-min interview
• We will explore the regular physical activity experiences of children and teens, as well as their thoughts and feelings about their balance when participating in physical activities
• Participants will receive a $20 gift card
• Paid parking at Holland Bloorview during the research session