Brain Power Connects Kids With The World

This story originally appeared in the Calgary Herald on February 7, 2026

In many ways, Claire Sonnenberg is an ordinary kid. She plays board games with her family. She’s fearless zooming around the yard in her remote-control Jeep. She loves making art, baking and hanging out with friends.

In other ways, Claire is truly extraordinary.

At just nine years old, she runs two small businesses — selling her artwork and homemade treats. But perhaps the most extraordinary thing about Claire is that she does all these things with only her thoughts.

“It was hard when we found out that she was going to have cerebral palsy,” says Claire’s mom, Stephanie. “You think about first steps, first words, first everything … that all got ripped right from underneath us.”

Despite being fully aware, cognitively sharp and full of sassy personality, Claire can’t use her arms or legs, relies on a wheelchair to get around and is unable to communicate verbally. For the first few years of her life, she was essentially trapped in her body.

When she was three, her family was invited to take part in a promising new research study at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. Through technology called brain-computer interface (BCI), Claire’s thoughts were translated into real-time actions, allowing her to interact with the world in ways previously thought impossible.

“It’s real, it’s not science fiction,” says pediatric neurologist Dr. Adam Kirton, director of the BCI4Kids program.

While the concept and iterations of BCI have been around for decades, the developments to date have focused on supporting adult patients, says Dr. Kirton. His team wanted to change that, adapting the technology for children.

Thanks to generous community support, they did.

“We would not be here without community support from Calgary and southern Alberta,” says Dr. Kirton. “Pushing the limits requires investment that is very hard to get from traditional means or research grants.

“When the community gets behind our hospital foundation and new, exciting ideas like this, it gives us the runway, it gives us the space to take a chance and to try something really innovative.”

The multidisciplinary team began working with families to understand pediatric-specific needs and functions for BCI. Soon, kids previously unable to move or speak could play video games, type words and operate devices with a non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG) device on their heads.

“BCI detects brain activity and sends it to a computer,” explains Dr. Kirton. “You can teach the computer to recognize certain patterns, certain thoughts and then use that to control a device, a toy or a video game using only brainwaves.”

Stephanie recalls the first time Claire tried BCI, watching the team place a headset on her daughter and not being sure what to expect.

“They explained to her that she needed to think ‘Go’,” says Stephanie. “Claire thought ‘Go’ and she turned on a light machine that had bubbles in it … that’s when I knew that her life was about to change.”

More recently, the BCI4Kids team began trialling the technology outside the hospital to support children at home, school and in their communities. Claire started using BCI to operate a blender and make smoothies. From there, she launched her first company — Claire’s Kitchen: Food By Thought — where BCI helps her pour and mix ingredients, cut vegetables and prepare baked goods, pasta and even pickles.

Though Claire has become quite the entrepreneur, what resonates most with Stephanie are the simple joys Claire was missing out on before — making friends and connecting with family.

“Those doors that we thought were closed … this opens them,” she says.

For Dr. Kirton, this is only the beginning. As work to further adapt and develop BCI continues, he’s excited for the possibilities, including implantable technology to offer more advanced opportunities — like being able to think sentences and have them communicated aloud.

Thanks to community support, Alberta Children’s Hospital is a leader in the field.

“We’re one of the only places in the world where kids can access this technology,” says Dr. Kirton. “We would never have been able to build this program from scratch without our community — their support is invaluable.”