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What is it?A traumatic brain injury is a complex injury to the brain caused by an external physical force resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or both that disrupts its normal function.
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Traumatic Brain Injury Applies to |
Open or closed head injuries result in impairments in one or more areas susch as:
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Key points about individuals with TBI
- Memory, attention, and executive function difficulties are common.
- The degree of initial recovery from the injury will vary widely and require frequent review of the student's IEP.
- Slowed processing of information and faulty reasoning are common.
- Preinjury skills may be preserved but are not predictive of new learning abilities.
- Less initiative and motivation are typical as is general fatigue.
- Lowered social inhibition and judgement, lowered impulse control, depression, and overestimation of abilities are typical.
Appropiate Assessments
- Attention, concentration, initiation, or sustained effort.
- Activities od daily living (pesonal hygene, eating, dressing, using public transportation)
- Communication, which would be the student's ability to express and understand language.
- Mobility which would be the student's current and potential range and mode of mobility.
- Psychosocial development (effects of impairment on students' social and emotional functioning)
- Physical abilities and limitations. Positioning and necessary adaptive equipment and techniques that facilitate studets' independence.
3 Basic Principles to Accomodate Students
1. Use others as resources. Call on the expertise of the student, parents, other school personnel, and others in health-related professions, as well as the student’s classmates.
2.Be flexible in your planning. Be willing to make last-minute changes in response to day- to-day changes in the student’s condition and readiness to learn.
3.Be ingenious and creative. One of the greatest rewards from working with students is helping them discover their strengths and ways to demonstrate them
2.Be flexible in your planning. Be willing to make last-minute changes in response to day- to-day changes in the student’s condition and readiness to learn.
3.Be ingenious and creative. One of the greatest rewards from working with students is helping them discover their strengths and ways to demonstrate them