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Language skills are essential to a child’s ability to communicate and develop. These skills enable children to engage with other people and learn from their surroundings and in the classroom.

Human experts remain essential for checking clinical AI outputs

In a Rwanda-based evaluation, LLM judges produced consistent and far cheaper ratings of clinical AI responses but matched local clinician ratings on only a minority of assessment criteria. They consistently missed potential demographic bias, indicating that human expert evaluation remains important despite AI’s potential role in initial screening.

21 Jul 2026

Salk neuroscientists identify traveling brain waves as a computational engine

Your brain has something surprising in common with the ocean: waves! Electrical activity washes over the brain's surface, creating what are called traveling brain waves or neural traveling waves.

21 Jul 2026

Tailored gene therapy dramatically reduces childhood epilepsy seizures in trial

SCN2A‑related developmental epileptic encephalopathy (DEE) is a rare, severe form of childhood epilepsy and one of the most common causes of monogenic autism.

21 Jul 2026

New tool detects hidden biases in medical training data

Researchers have built a tool to uncover hidden issues in the massive datasets used to train medical AI.

20 Jul 2026

Musical Museum helps reduce isolation among dementia patients

Growing evidence suggests lifelong learning can help combat cognitive decline, but many older adults with dementia avoid traditional classes for fear of not keeping up.

20 Jul 2026

COVID lockdown babies show language strengths at age four

Research from the BICYCLE study shows 4-year-olds born in lockdown excel in language but face challenges in executive function, indicating a need for support.

17 Jul 2026

Maternal diets high in UPFs may influence children’s health years later

A narrative review of 84 publications links higher ultra-processed food intake during pregnancy and early childhood with poorer diet quality, maternal complications, childhood obesity, and potential immune, metabolic, and neurodevelopmental effects. The authors identify possible microbiome and biopsychosocial pathways but emphasize that the predominantly observational evidence cannot establish causality.

17 Jul 2026

Brain signals explain speech communication differences in autistic children

Why do some children with autism communicate more easily than others, even when they hear the same words?

16 Jul 2026

Evidence does not support universal vitamin D supplementation to prevent preterm birth

Announcing a new article publication in BIO Integration. Preterm birth complications are among leading causes of mortality in neonates and children under 5 years of age worldwide.

15 Jul 2026

AI speech-to-text needs stronger oversight in healthcare, study finds

AI speech-to-text had a moment in the spotlight on the medical drama series, "The Pitt," just earlier this year.

14 Jul 2026

Lockdown-born children show lower executive function at school age

Children born during the first COVID-19 lockdown in England had lower reported levels of executive function - crucial skills involved in making plans, solving problems and adapting to new situations - suggest the findings of a study published online in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

14 Jul 2026

Most pregnant people fail to achieve recommended seatbelt placement

Nearly nine in 10 pregnant participants in a study led by biomedical engineers at UBC did not achieve recommended seatbelt placement, even after instruction and hands-on guidance.

14 Jul 2026

Study tracks school readiness and academic performance in preterm children

More than half of children (57 per cent) born before 32 weeks were not ready for school at five years of age, including in areas such as communication and language, and physical and emotional development.

14 Jul 2026

AI text analysis reveals hidden mental health signs in emergency call takers and dispatchers

Emergency call takers and dispatchers serve as the invisible frontline of public safety, navigating life-or-death crises over phone lines and radios without ever seeing the outcomes of their efforts.

14 Jul 2026

Study links chronic xanthan gum consumption to colon inflammation

Xanthan gum is found almost everywhere. This food additive has thickening, stabilizing, and gelling properties and is one of the most widely used by the food industry to adjust the consistency of ice cream, yogurt, cakes, sauces, and gluten-free pasta.

13 Jul 2026

New benchmark shows AI still misses the human side of mental health care

PsyEval is a new benchmark that tests how large language models perform on mental health knowledge, diagnostic assessment, and emotional support tasks. The study found that leading models can show strong factual recall and fluent responses, but still struggle with empathy, clinical nuance, prompt sensitivity, and safe diagnostic behavior.

12 Jul 2026

ADHD remains underdiagnosed across England despite rising diagnoses

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) may still be under-recognised and under-diagnosed in England despite recent increases in diagnosis, according to a study led by researchers at UCL, University of Liverpool and King's College London.

9 Jul 2026

Six-gene signature predicts colorectal cancer recurrence after liver metastases

Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center identified a six-gene signature in microscopic colorectal cancer (CRC) liver metastases that may help predict recurrence after treatment.

9 Jul 2026

AI-powered digital twins help train future mental health clinicians

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, New York University and Penn's Linguistic Data Consortium have received a two-year, $4 million grant from the Wellcome Trust to develop a scalable, AI-powered platform for training mental health clinicians.

9 Jul 2026

New form of hereditary prostate cancer can cause aggressive disease at a young age

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have identified a new form of hereditary prostate cancer that, while rare, can cause aggressive disease at a young age.

9 Jul 2026