'Very emotional': Brain-scanning tech gives kids with disabilities new powers
CBC
It sounds like something from a futuristic film: Technology that allows users to control their environment with mere thoughts.
But for kids with disabilities in Ontario, it's an emerging reality that's helping them connect with the world around them in unprecedented ways.
For 10-year-old Irelynn, who's non-verbal and has limited mobility, it means she can make a toy play music just by thinking about clapping.
"Probably the best thing I've ever seen," says her dad, Jeff.
Out of respect for the family's safety concerns, CBC is withholding Irelynn and her father's last name from this story.
The technology, known as brain computer interface (BCI), relies on a black headset equipped with several circular sensors that listen to electrical signals inside Irelynn's head.
"She has taught software to recognize a particular command thought," says Susannah Van Damme, an occupational therapist and the team lead of the clinical BCI program at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto.
"So for Irelynn, she loves applause, she loves clapping, so that was the first command thought that we worked with."
Van Damme led the recent session with Irelynn at the John McGivney Children's Centre in Windsor, Ont. The centre, which provides services and care to local kids with disabilities, is among the first in the province to train with the tool.
A $30 million donation from the Slaight Family Foundation late last year is helping spread the technology beyond Holland Bloorview, which pioneered it.
Jodi Fischer, manager for occupational therapy and physiotherapy at McGivney, says the training is in the early stages, but that it's been "very exciting" so far.
"They see a way that they get to control their environment […] in a way that they've never been able to do in lots of instances," she says.
"It's giving them a tool that they didn't know was possible."
She said one boy she's worked with for years used the technology to make a machine throw a ball — something that could be integrated into a group program, or even allow him to play with his family in the future.
After several delays to the mission that will take four astronauts around the moon, NASA held a press conference today announcing that Artemis II is on track to launch as early as April 1.
Snuneymuxw First Nation is calling for a temporary closure and environmental investigation of a hazardous waste services company following a January oil spill on Duke Point near Nanaimo, B.C.
In February, five people were killed in separate avalanches across B.C. and Alberta. That same month, more than a dozen people were killed in California and Utah, including a particularly deadly avalanche that claimed the lives of nine. In Europe, from Andorra to Slovakia, the season has recorded 125 deaths from avalanches so far.
Getting a proper vehicle to transport people for urgent medical care is an ongoing challenge in fly-in First Nations in northwestern Ontario.
A new supergroup of musicians from Six Nations of the Grand River and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation have collaborated on a Robbie Robertson-inspired song they will perform at the Junos Honouring Ceremony later this month in Hamilton.
People as young as 45 should be invited to provincial and territorial programs to screen for colorectal cancer, the Canadian Cancer Society urged on Wednesday.
The Métis Nation-Saskatchewan (MN-S) has opened an office and retail space in Ottawa to create a stronger presence in the capital since removing itself from the Métis National Council in 2024.
Toronto resident Winhan Wong's lung cancer journey began in 2016, with a nagging cough that just wouldn't go away.
Last month, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak pointed out on social media that history was made this year because there are a record 164 female chiefs serving across the country.
Most of humanity has a great propensity to think in the short-term, but generally, long-term considerations — air pollution, deforestation and emissions, for example — just aren't our thing.
As the COVID-19 pandemic began to unfold in early April 2020, Kolter Bouchard was just weeks into fatherhood when he noticed a lump on his neck.
Advocates and health care providers say they remain concerned about First Nations kids seeking services under Jordan's Principle even after the Canadian government’s recent promise of $1.55 billion in funding.
Contrary to science fiction, black holes are not portals to other dimensions or cosmic vacuum cleaners that swallow up everything around them.