Background: Motor outcomes of children with unilateral cerebral palsy are clearly documented and well understood, yet few studies describe the cognitive functioning in this population, and the associations between the two is poorly understood. Using two hands together in daily life involves complex motor and cognitive processes.
Impairment in either domain may contribute to difficulties with bimanual performance. Research is yet to derive whether, and how, cognition affects a child’s ability to use their two hands to perform bimanual tasks.

Can you answer this OT question? Give it a try!!

The Do-Live-Well (DLW) framework is a health promotion approach developed by
Canadian occupational therapists (OTs). As the DLW framework is relatively new, it has
not been widely adopted by OTs. In order to facilitate OTs to incorporate the DLW
concepts in their practice, there should be more learning opportunities, and online and
in-person workshops have been chosen to be a specific interest of this study. The
purpose of this project was to develop theory- and evidence-based in-person and online
educational workshops for OTs as a pre-implementation study to increase the
knowledge of the DLW framework among OTs. In order to develop workshops, we
incorporated three different phases. First, we interviewed four OTs who have been
applying the DLW concepts in practice to understand their use of the framework and
training needs. It was identified that OTs experienced difficulty applying the DLW
concepts in practice and wanted opportunities to learn more about the DLW framework.
Next, problem-based learning (PBL) guided the workshop development, and the same
eight key PBL principles were incorporated in both the in-person and online workshops.
Finally, four different experts completed usability testing of the online workshop website
to improve its learning environment. The online workshop website was improved based
on the feedback from the usability testers. The next step of this research will be to
compare effectiveness of in-person and online platforms for workshop delivery. The
detailed development process described in this project may assist occupational therapy
educators in developing theory- and evidence-based educational delivery methods.

Why is disability research important? When asked this question I tend to respond by revising it in my head (if not out loud). Why is disability research so important? Why is any research important? I might go on in this vein but my point is that disability research has the potential to improve understandings of the most fundamental aspect of the human condition —namely, the diversity of minds and bodies. 

We asked people with a learning disability, parents and carers to describe what learning disability means to them - in their own words. This is what they had to say...

Parents with learning disabilities are twenty times more likely to have their children removed from them and placed into care. Yet with the right support, we can keep families together.

Caring for the Mental Health of Children

The aim of this study was to assess the acceptability, implementation and practicality of conducting a prospective, observational and longitudinal trial to describe physical and functional impairments of patients with active TB.