Founded by Rotary in 1957, KidsAbility now supports more than 22,000 children and youth with disabilities and developmental delays in accessing support across various KidsAbility programs and services. Guided by a vision of an innovative and inclusive network of care where every child, youth and family can thrive, KidsAbility is expanding access to timely, equitable services, strengthening family-centred experiences, and supporting sustainable growth. Through this work, KidsAbility creates pathways to hope, opportunity and a future filled with possibilities.
The University of Waterloo provides significant partnership value to KidsAbility through its many collaborative research and teaching initiatives – five of which are outlined on this page for 2025/26. Since signing the January 2024 MOU, KidsAbility’s Rocket Discovery Centre and the University of Waterloo have developed a deep, multi-faculty partnership spanning engineering, computer science, design, business and psychology. The research outputs generated by the partnership have translated into on-ground impacts ranging from system level changes to life-changing advancement for individual children.
A language model for pediatric occupational therapy documentation: Model development and pilot study
Dr. Bryan Tripp (Systems Design Engineering) and his research team collaborated with KidsAbility’s Rocket Discovery Centre to publish peer-reviewed research in a 2026 edition of the Journal of Medical Internet Research AI, demonstrating how artificial intelligence can support pediatric occupational therapy documentation while maintaining clinical quality, accuracy and integrity. The study developed a custom AI model that transformed clinician notes into SOAP-format documentation and found that AI-generated notes were rated higher for clarity, completeness, relevance and organization, with additional pilot work showing substantial reductions in documentation time when paired with clinician training.
Improving treatment planning and system performance through dynamic policies and artificial intelligence
Led by Dr. Hossein Abouee Mehrizi (Management Science and Engineering) and developed in collaboration with KidsAbility Rocket Discovery Centre (Director of Innovation and Research, Brendan Wylie-Toal), the research leverages rigorous analytical methods and large language models to better understand treatment needs and identify effective service strategies. At its core, the research advocates for a shift from static rules to dynamic, responsive policies — care models that account for how waiting affects treatment needs and how children progress through care. By extracting progress insights from clinical notes, the work also informs when children should be reassessed. One paper based on this collaboration was presented at the 2026 INFORMS MSOM Conference, hosted by Harvard Business School.
AI and healthcare capstone course
In Fall 2026, KidsAbility will partner, along with five other health organizations, with the University of Waterloo on a new AI + Healthcare capstone course led by Dr. Edith Law (School of Computer Science) and Dr. Jennifer Yessis (School of Public Health Sciences) to strengthen interdisciplinary AI literacy, readiness and responsible AI adoption across health professions and organizations. The KidsAbility’s Rocket Discovery Centre will contribute its clinical and innovation expertise to help co-design meaningful, ethical AI applications that reflect the realities of care delivery and support the next generation of healthcare leaders.
Building confidence and collaboration for generative AI use in community-based healthcare
In partnership with KidsAbility, Karen Cochrane’s (Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business and Graham Seed Fund recipient) 2026 project examines how community-based healthcare organizations can strengthen AI readiness by supporting confident and collaborative use of generative AI tools already available in practice. The project adopts a service design and human-centred approach to identify breakdowns in current use and opportunities for meaningful integration. The project will also produce an AI readiness framework centred on professional confidence and collaboration, with relevance for other community-based healthcare settings.
Supporting implementation of brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies / Clinician-in-Residence
James Tung (BME Undergraduate Director, Systems Design Engineering) and the Neural and Rehabilitation Engineering (NRE) lab have partnered with KidsAbility to bridge the gap between research and clinical practice, supporting the implementation of brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies in pediatric rehabilitation. Having identified promising applications of BCI paradigms for play, mobility and social participation, this ongoing partnership aims to address barriers to adoption and support clinical decision-making. Key collaborator, Cynthia Lennon (Clinical Innovation Specialist, KidsAbility Rocket Discovery Centre, and Systems Design Engineering, Clinician-in-Residence ('25-26)) brings 20 years of clinical experience as an occupational therapist to this exciting translational project.