Excerpts

Introduction

Students with brain injuries encounter an array of challenges when they return to school. These may include mobility, visual, auditory, speech, and language impairments, as well as cognitive and behavioral changes. Meeting the complex needs of these students is an on-going challenge for special educators and regular classroom teachers.

To be successful in middle, junior high and high school, students must learn to independently manage complex schedules, deadlines, materials, and other academic and social responsibilities. Brain injuries change the way students process, store and respond to information. Students often need help with the organizational skills that are so critical in these settings. For example, they benefit from compensatory memory and learning aids such as written schedules, homework lists, checklists for class materials, diaries of daily events, etc.

As students mature, they are confronted with important choices and decisions about their futures. Going to college, learning a trade, finding a job, getting an apartment, becoming independent – these choices become more complicated for the adolescent who has a brain injury. The transition from special education services to the adult service system often seems like “falling off a cliff”. Careful planning and preparation is needed during high school years to bridge these systems. The pressure of decreasing time is a concern of many parents of students with special needs who are aware of the limited window of opportunity for services under special education.

Why use this manual?

This manual can be used for any kind of student-centered planning, including the individualized education plan (IEP) required for every student who is found eligible for special education. The tools and techniques described can help the educator gather information and conduct effective meetings. These methods can help educators and parents identify a student’s strengths and spot difficulties as well as generate options and monitor progress. When these tools and techniques are used in combination with the goals and objectives of the IEP, educators, families and students become successful collaborators in the educational process.

Why is this necessary if the IEP process already works for students with special needs? This manual builds on the tools and skills that most educators and school staff already possess from their experience with students who have special needs. However, since the consequences of a brain injury can be so complex and unpredictable, educators are often uncertain where to begin.

The methods described in this manual are not for exclusive use with students with brain injuries. They can be implemented with any student with a disability. However, these tools were initially developed for middle through high school students with brain injuries because:

• their needs change rapidly, especially during the first 1-2 years after the injury;
• parents of students injured during adolescence are introduced to the special education system for the first time;
• latent effects of a brain injury may show up over time;
• brain development is still ongoing through adolescence;
• school work becomes more complex.

Students who have brain injuries prior to adolescence typically encounter new difficulties as they enter middle school or high school, even if elementary school went smoothly. Too often, changes are blamed on low motivation, poor attitudes or adolescent behavior when, in fact, the long-term consequences of an earlier brain injury are becoming evident as school work becomes more complex and different functions of the brain are challenged.

Students who are injured during adolescence struggle with many changes. Some are related to their injuries; others are part of adolescence. Parents may feel confused and challenged as they try to learn about and negotiate the unfamiliar system of special education. They no longer have the luxury of time to try a range of vocational and academic options.

Educators and staff, even those with experience in educating students with special needs, are concerned about how to help students with brain injuries. Schools typically have little experience teaching these students. Consequently, many staff question whether they are “doing the right thing” and admit they “don’t really understand how the brain injury has affected this

This manual was developed to respond to educator comments such as...

• “I’m not sure what I should be looking for.”
• “It’s really confusing because he does so well in some areas.”
• “Sometimes I think that her frustration is really my fault.”
• “She was always a difficult student, so why focus on the injury?”

These comments reflect educators’ desire to help students with brain injuries, but also their uncertainty about how to teach them.

Techniques described in this manual help educators....

• gather information about how the student functions in different school settings and at home
• organize and conduct educational planning meetings
• check progress on action plans
• reconvene the educational team as needed
• communicate about selection, implementation, and monitoring of strategies