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Most kids bump their head every now and then. But in some cases, an accident can cause a concussion that affects a child’s health. Every year, 50,000 Canadian children under five end up in emergency rooms because of mild traumatic brain injuries, which are among the main factors leading to brain development disruptions and lower quality of life in young people. Despite that, up until now, research on concussions has overlooked very young children owing to their assumed physical resilience and capacity to heal quickly.

To address the lack of knowledge on the lasting symptoms, Miriam Beauchamp and her team in the ABCs Lab at Université de Montréal assembled the Koala (Kids’ Outcomes And Long-term Abilities after Early Traumatic Brain Injury) cohort of children who suffered a concussion and were treated in one of four North American pediatric hospitals.

Thanks to them, for the very first time in the world, research is finally shedding light on how a mild traumatic brain injury in early childhood can result in taxing symptoms like mood swings, sleep disturbances and behavioural problems.

The large-scale project also helped develop tools to prevent concussions, as well as intervene early and better manage them when they occur, since kids require adapted treatment that considers their need to rest after a mild traumatic brain injury and slowly start playing again and returning to daycare, for example.

To be useful, the knowledge must be shared, and Miriam Beauchamp is also focused on communicating scientific and clinical data about concussions in children under five to parents, health professionals and educators in day care centres and schools through the CoCo initiative. The series of campaigns and tools is designed to pass on current information about the dangers and impacts of head injuries in young children and catalogue symptoms in the Report of Early Childhood Traumatic Injury Observations and Symptoms (REACTIONS). 

Source :

Dupont, D., Beauchamp, M. et coll. pour la cohorte KOALA (2024). Post-Concussive Symptoms after Early Childhood Concussion, JAMA Network Open, 7(3), e243182. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.3182