Traumatic Brain Injury
- lperry94
- Nov 1, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 21, 2020
(Also known by TBI)
Traumatic brain injury is defined by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association by “an injury to the head that may cause interference with normal brain functions”. This can be a result of an accident, or a foreign object entering the brain and causing damage in psychological and cognitive abilities, speech and language, physical functioning, and personal and social behaviours.
Imagine your life changing all of a sudden because of a head injury… This can be overwhelming and traumatizing for everyone especially for children that were affected. One common traumatic brain injury happens in a car accident. The child usually spends weeks or months in the hospital, and when he finally returns to school, everything is different and has a big adjustment to deal with. Frequently, there is memory loss and speech problems associated with TBI. This can affect decision making, planning and organization. Also many hours of rehabilitation causing missed school and many adjustments to learning.
Strengths of children with traumatic brain injury:
Very resilient
Can be very successful academically depending on the injury
Try to be positive when understood
Famous people that had TBI:
Abraham Lincoln - was kicked in the head by a mule when he was 10 years old. He endured the effects of a TBI the rest of his life, mainly weak face muscles and impaired vision. He went on to do pretty well for himself.
Facebook challenge activity:
- Some card games are perfect to improve memory and pattern recognition for patients with TBI.
- Pick a partner and play a game of goldfish.
-If you are by yourself, play a game of solitary.
Resources:
There are some amazing videos that illustrate life after the TBI. One of them is: Child with traumatic brain injury stands with “proud talk” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PUhUX7w2Js
This short video explains TBI very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiLBPsTRLnQ
This book is a great read for children to understand TBI:
Other references used for this article:
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