Children News and Research

RSS

Autistic children show reading gains through online instruction tool

Despite many obstacles presented by students being at home during COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions, the autistic children involved in this research project still showed significant progress through online instruction.

6 Nov 2026

How to recognize and manage your baby's cough at home

Coughing is one of our bodies' most important defenses against respiratory illnesses like the flu and pneumonia.

6 Nov 2026

Routine pediatric lung therapies do not improve ventilator-free days

Results from the largest international clinical trial of its kind show that early, routine use of prone positioning and/or high-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) do not increase ventilator-free days for children with pediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome (PARDS).

6 Nov 2026

Virtual reality reduces anxiety among children awaiting surgery

Children who used a virtual reality (VR) headset before surgery showed reduced self-reported distress and fear, along with lower heart rate and blood pressure, according to a new study published November 5th in the open access journal PLOS Digital Health by Dayanjan Wijesinghe of Virginia Commonwealth University, US, and colleagues.

5 Nov 2026

New screening initiative triples chlamydia and gonorrhea testing among adolescents

Researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) found that a systematic, electronic health record-enabled quality improvement initiative was associated with a large increase in chlamydia and gonorrhea screening among adolescents and led to the detection of more infections.

5 Nov 2026

Medical societies unify to endorse evidence-based respiratory vaccine guidance

Hoping to provide much-needed guidance to clinicians treating patients with lung disease and to promote respiratory health, the Vaccine Guidance Review Panel, a multi-medical society effort, announced its endorsement of influenza, RSV and COVID-19 recommendations for adults and children.

5 Nov 2026

ASH establishes new blood reference ranges for Duffy-null individuals

ASH has developed new reference ranges for children and adults with Duffy-null status, a common genetic trait associated with naturally lower circulating white blood cell counts that affects more than 66% of people with African or Mediterranean ancestry in the US.

5 Nov 2026

Early childhood intervention crucial for treating rising eating disorders

Early intervention can significantly improve long-term health outcomes for eating disorders, which have one of the highest mortality rates of any mental health condition.

5 Nov 2026

Public health experts demand tighter global restrictions on fireworks

Fireworks pose an underestimated danger to public health and require stronger regulations and sustained public education campaigns to help prevent devastating, yet entirely avoidable injuries, warn US experts in The BMJ today.

5 Nov 2026

Temporary ultrasonic sensor provides continuous feedback during spinal cord healing

Following a $13.48 million dollar award from the defense department, a team of engineers and surgeons from Johns Hopkins Medicine have published their first proof-of-concept study that shows temporarily implanting a tiny ultrasonic device into the location of a spinal cord injury can be feasible, safe and potentially useful.

5 Nov 2026

Brain scans reveal clues to Alzheimer's risk years before memory loss begins

Inside the brains of some cognitively normal adults, firing patterns were able to foretell Alzheimer's disease years before the onset of memory loss or the accumulation of plaques and tangles, according to new Stanford Medicine-led research.

5 Nov 2026

UCLA advances CRISPR gene-editing therapy for sickle cell disease

A UCLA-led team has described how they advanced an experimental CRISPR approach for sickle cell disease into a blood stem cell therapy that can be manufactured at the scale and quality required for a clinical trial.

4 Nov 2026

Children exposed to cannabis and tobacco before birth scored lower on thinking tests

In an exploratory analysis of 8,706 U.S. children aged 9 to 11, prenatal exposure to both cannabis and tobacco was associated with modestly lower fluid cognition scores compared with cannabis-only exposure or neither substance. Differences from tobacco-only exposure were not statistically significant, nor were differences in crystallized cognition, and the observational findings could not establish causation.

4 Nov 2026

New digital therapy prevents maternal anxiety from escalating during pregnancy

Pregnant women or birthing people with undiagnosed anxiety could benefit from a new digital therapy, according to a clinical trial led by King's College London.

4 Nov 2026

Researchers identify specific gene linked to female protection from autism

In many cases all it takes is one mutated gene to orchestrate changes across a whole network of genes linked to autism, according to new results published today in Nature by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital.

4 Nov 2026

Supervised food challenges clear many infants of suspected peanut allergy

A world-first national program has discovered more than a third of babies thought to have a peanut allergy could safely have the diagnosis removed. And the findings are changing how Australia's healthcare system approaches infant food allergies.

4 Nov 2026

Cannabis dominates youth hospital visits while alcohol impacts older adults

A large national study analyzing emergency department visits and hospitalizations related to alcohol or cannabis use across the U.S. has found diverging age patterns: Among people who presented to the hospital for a substance-related problem, cannabis was involved in the majority of visits by adolescents and young adults, while alcohol predominated among older adults.

4 Nov 2026