Research Highlights

Dr. Rasmussen and her team are researching ways to improve the math skills of children with learning difficulties through the MILE program. MILE is an evidence-based intervention to support math learning by targeting underlying cognitive skills involved in math while also building self-regulation in children. Her team trained educators to administer MILE classroom-wide for children with various learning needs. So far, MILE has been implemented in 19 classrooms across Alberta, impacting an estimated 600-700 students, and MILE is now being implemented in Manitoba. After completing the MILE program, students experienced significant increases in math achievement, and teachers reported increased self-efficacy. Her team is currently developing a MILE training website to allow educators to access MILE from anywhere and to enable MILE to impact more children. 

The PICUs in Canada have been analyzing the impact of restricting family presence in the ICU during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Stollery PICU staff participated as subjects, with Dr D Garros as a senior co-author on several papers. To date, there have been 4 publications describing the impact of such restrictive measures on administrators, Clinicians and families. Two Qualitative papers analyzed the clinicians' experiences and, most importantly, the families' experiences. The responses from Canadian families are particularly poignant, describing the profound impact of being alone at the bedside, even facing deprivation of basic necessities. A study on the impact on children and teenagers is coming soon. The reason for delving into these papers, despite COVID-19 being an extraordinary and devastating event, is to heed the lessons learned about the critical importance of family presence and to use this knowledge to prevent repeating past mistakes in the future.

Check out the publications:

DOI: 10.9778/cmajo.20210202, DOI: 10.1007/s12630-023-02547-7, DOI: 10.1007/s12630-024-02742-0 & DOI: 10.1097/CCE.0000000000000989.

Patricia Candelaria and Dr. Samina Ali are researching ways to lessen children’s fear in pediatric emergency department waiting rooms using a humanoid robot in their MEDi-Kids study. Patricia Candelaria, RN and Program Manager of the Pediatric Emergency: Advancing Knowledge (PEAK) Research Team at the University of Alberta, is currently leading the MEDi-Kids study under the mentorship of Dr. Samina Ali, Professor of Pediatrics and Pediatric Emergency Medicine Research Director for the DoP. Together with Dr. Summer Hudson, general pediatrics resident, they have programmed a humanoid robot to deliver brief, psychology-based interventions and distraction, to improve children’s experiences in the ED waiting room. The robot will distract children with music and dance and engage the child in guided relaxation techniques. This project is generously funded by the ARNET Research Grant and the Salloum Foundation. Recruitment for this study launched April 2024 and is expected to be completed by Fall 2024.