By Louise Kinross Click here for October’s BLOOM! Here are some quotes to pique your interest: -From a professor at Virginia Tech and amputee: “The desire to see technological development and fixing as THE solution to disability allows people to continue to build and justify a world that is inaccessible,...
By Louise Kinross “Lizzy, you have a magical light that shines from you and draws kids into a halo of safety.” That was written by a parent to describe Lizzy Luff, a therapeutic recreation specialist who works on Holland Bloorview’s complex continuing care unit. Lizzy first came to our hospital...
By Louise Kinross Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement critiques the idea that technology is a magic bullet that can erase disability. The book is written by Ashley Shew (above), a philosopher of technology and professor at Virginia Tech who became an amputee after cancer treatment. “Technoableism is a belief in the...
By Louise Kinross Jessica Slice is an Ontario author, social worker and adoptive mother whose book Unfit Parent will be released by Beacon Press in 2025. Jessica, who has a connective tissue disorder and neurological condition, and her husband David fostered and then adopted Khalil. Khalil is now six and...
By Louise Kinross I wanted to love this short documentary on The New York Times. It’s about twin boys entering their teen years. One, Rémi, is non-disabled and the other, Raphaël, has developmental disabilities that aren’t further described. It’s visually stunning, and the boys’ bond is palpable. But I finished...
By Louise Kinross This week the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States designated people with disabilities as “a population with health disparities.” That means they experience preventable differences in their health due to systemic discrimination. Previously, the NIH had funded research on health inequities faced by racial,...
By Louise Kinross Famous PEOPLE Players is a black light theatre company in Toronto that trains people with intellectual disabilities as performers. “Think of glow-in-the-dark life-size characters,” says founder Diane Dupuy (photo above), animated by actors hidden in black costumes. Players (photo below) learn to manipulate the puppets and props, which...
Joe Wong, right, with daughter Jillian, centre, and occupational therapist Salma Kassam. By Louise Kinross Joe Wong tried for three days to convince doctors at an Ontario hospital that something was seriously wrong with his daughter Jillian, 7, who was hospitalized for flu. On the third day the Mississauga, Ont....
By Louise Kinross Last year every Grade 1 student in Canada received a copy of Fast Friends, a picture book about classmates Suze, who uses a red wheelchair and doesn’t speak, and Tyson, her best friend. The book, selected for the TD Grade One Book Giveaway, was written by Peterborough,...
By Louise Kinross Waqas Zaman came to Holland Bloorview as a student nurse in 2021 and now works as a casual nurse on our inpatient units. His dedication to patient care is matched with a passion for technology: He’s doing a master’s program in Health Informatics at the University of...
Alifa Khan (right) and son Junayd By Louise Kinross Alifa Khan talks about how she parented before and after she learned about acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Her son Junayd, 15, has autism. Before, “I would ruminate a lot on trying to come up with the perfect solution,” she says....
By Louise Kinross Take a look at our August issue. Here are some highlights: -Victoria Rombos, who coordinates our Sibling Support Program, shares a personal story about her family’s inability to get a night nurse for her sister, who uses a trache, for almost two months, which means her mother...
Victoria Rombos (left) with sister Chrysoula and mother Mary. By Louise Kinross The other day my colleague Victoria Rombos dropped by to say her family has struggled for almost two months without a night nurse for her sister Chrysoula, 24. Chrysoula, who has seizures and a feeding tube, relies on...
By Louise Kinross Kami is a young woman with purple hair and funky clothes who lives on Instagram @itskamisworld. “A virtual girl with an extra chromosome” is how she describes herself. “I’m not real,” she explains in an About Me video. “But I’m made from hundreds of real women, with...
By Louise Kinross Canadians diagnosed with a disability in childhood see little growth in what they earn during their mid 30s and 40s, while incomes for those without childhood-onset disabilities (COD) grow steadily until their late 40s and early 50s, a recent study in Health Economics finds. The Statistics Canada...
By Louise Kinross Jennifer Ryan is fascinated by exercise and how it can influence movement in children being treated for brain injuries. Four days a week she arrives at SickKids Hospital in Toronto on a red mountain bike, wearing an orange helmet. There she’s a post-doctoral research fellow analyzing how an...
This morning I watched this CP24 story about the fourth time an Ontario mom’s toddler son has had his heart surgery cancelled. Twenty-five years ago, I had my own experience of this with my son, but with a much less frightening surgery: he was getting a g-tube. While waiting for...
By Louise Kinross American parents of children with disabilities and complex medical problems said clinicians discriminated against their child in a new study in Pediatrics—the first to look at parent perceptions of disability bias in health care. For example, a doctor tells a parent: “We don’t work with autistic children, they’re really hard,”...
By Louise Kinross Loneliness was the main reason 77 per cent of 39 Dutch adults with autism and/or intellectual disability chose assisted suicide, according to a recent study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry. Physician reports revealed many despaired at being rejected by society. For an autistic man in his 50s with...
