Overview

Communication is fundamental for everyday relationships, school, work and leisure. Many children with cerebral palsy (CP) have impaired speech, language or hearing abilities, which affect their communication. In turn, this may lead to significant long-term impacts on learning, friendships, social participation and employment. For some children with CP, their impairments can be so severe that children are unable to speak.

Many children with CP who are non-speaking are still be able to comprehend speech. For them, it is critical to accurately determine how much they understand in order to know how to talk with them, and to make sure they receive the education and therapy they need. It can also help to determine the most appropriate augmentative and alternative communication systems and supports to facilitate and optimize the child's ability to learn, develop and participate in daily life and classroom activities.

Between 2018-21, the CanChild team led work to translate, culturally adapt, and validate the Canadian English cloud-based version of the C-BiLLT (C-BiLLT-CAN). This work was led by Jan Willem Gorter, and was funded by the Hamilton Academic Health Sciences Organization. The C-BiLLT-CAN was shown to be valid and reliable when used with typically developing children (Bootsma et al, 2023).

Challenges experienced during early feasibility testing with children with CP prompted a new project to better understand the Canadian context in which the C-BiLLT-CAN will be implemented, and adapt the C-BiLLT-CAN to better accommodate the needs of Canadian children with CP. This project is a collaboration between CanChild, Holland Bloorview, and Western University. It is co-led by BJ Cunningham and Tom Chau, and is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2022-26).

Website: www.c-billt.com

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