A child’s traumatic brain injury can affect the entire family system. When a family is dealing multiple sources stress related to a TBI, it is often difficult to focus on the feelings and needs of the injured child’s siblings.

Coordinating services in school for a student with an acquired or traumatic brain injury can be challenging. Changes in a student’s physical well-being, cognition, emotional and psychosocial behaviors after a traumatic (TBI) or acquired brain injury (ABI) can stigmatize the child in school. Building a foundation to support the student in school requires a team effort with school administrators, community leaders, youths and families. Collaborative communication is essential to effectively address the specific needs of the student with an acquired brain injury. Training, support, and technical assistance for school staff can be a critical factor in effective educational programming.

As students with traumatic brain injury or TBI move to middle and high school, the executive skills of the brain’s frontal lobe face more complex challenges. These areas are often damaged in moderate or severe brain injuries. Theresa Sacchi Armstrong describes why writing assignments can be especially difficult for these students with TBI in school and how teachers can help.

Students with brain injury or TBI often struggle with executive skills in the classroom. Because these high-level cognitive functions cue other mental functions, they are critical for children’s thinking and learning in school. But challenges in executive skills do not automatically qualify a student for special education. Careful assessment of strengths and deficits along with careful lesson planning, follow-up and support by teachers are critical for students with acquired brain injuries to function and succeed in the classroom as well as with homework at home.

I was finally able to return to school part time in January, but with much apprehension. I had just started to put the days of the week and the months of the year in order and I was working on being able to walk better in a straight line and stand still without having to grab onto something.

I was still extremely symptomatic, and did not feel well at all, and consequently, I was unable to be my old self. One really cannot understand the frustration of this until they experience it first hand. I am usually a very energetic and upbeat person, but now my personality was completely flat and emotionless. I simply could not be “present” in any situation. I had damaged my brain and had been isolated from the world for three months. I was nothing but nerves and I was feeling self-conscious. Social situations of any kind were stressful. I could feel myself wanting to socialize and be with my friends, and take part in things, but physically, I was in such pain and completely exhausted, that I just could not do it. I could hardly follow a conversation and many people talking at once were a real bother to my head.

I spent the first 3 months of my concussion lying in bed at home, in a dark room, and on complete brain rest. This brain rest meant that I could not watch TV, use a computer, phone, text, read anything, do any sort of homework or exercise. In other words, I could just sleep and lie in bed.

Students with traumatic and other acquired brain injuries often have such difficulty with attention that it affects their ability to pay attention in class, study effectively, do homework and succeed in school. Katherine Kimes provides educational tips and strategies that teachers can use in the classroom to help improve a student’s attention and performance. These practical suggestions for students with brain injury (TBI) can be used by all educational staff as well as parents.

Managing the behavior of students with traumatic brain injury can be challenging and frustrating for teachers, therapists and parents. Katherine Kimes explains four types of behavior management strategies that can be used in rehabilitation as well as at home and in school. By understanding how to identify changes in behaviors that are related to the brain injury or TBI and then measuring those behaviors, educators and therapists can develop and implement a plan to encourage positive adaptive behaviors and to decrease “problem” behaviors in children and adolescents.

Changes in a child or adolescent’s behavior after a brain injury can be upsetting for parents and frustrating for teachers at school. A brain injury can cause behavioral, emotional and psychosocial problems, issues that were not once there for the student. Katherine Kimes describes what these changes in behavior may look like in the classroom. She discusses the complex interaction between damage to the youth’s brain, reactions by the student, and the child’s pre-existing abilities.

A brain injury can affect executive functions in children – but what does this mean? Katherine Kimes explains that the frontal lobes of the brain are responsible for high level cognitive functions – commonly called executive skills. These skills include planning, information processing, memory, judgment, initiation, abstraction, emotional regulation, inattentiveness, and self-awareness. When these skills are affected in youth, students can have new challenges in school, at home and with peers. It’s important for educators and parents to recognize that an earlier brain injury can have a direct impact on that child’s ability to learn and function in the classroom.