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Did Your Newborn Suffer Cerebral
Palsy or Another Brain Injury Before
or During Labor and Delivery?

Learn More

Our Birth Brain Injury Resource Guide

the guide

Get a FREE guide of resources available throughout Ohio to children and families of children who were born with brain injuries.

Our guide can help you build a foundation of knowledge and tools that will help you help your child
now and in the future.

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Brain Injury News and Research - School

A brain injury sustained at birth can have a profound impact on the life of an individual. While some children are going to recover entirely, others may deal with cognitive impairments that will necessitate a specialized educational approach.

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Brain Function and TBI in Children

Whether going to school is going to be possible for a child that has sustained such injury at birth will depend entirely on the severity of the trauma and the impact it has had on cognitive functioning.

Brain Injury journal published a thorough article on the topic, focusing on a clinical trial involving 96 children that experienced the injury before going attending school. The injuries were classified as mild, moderate or severe. The results were matched to the brain function results of healthy children in a control group.

The youngsters underwent evaluation six, 12 and 18 months after sustaining an injury. As expected, researchers found out that moderate to severe injuries had a bigger impact on memory function. The effect was most evident at the evaluation that took place 12 months after the incident occurred.

The subjects with mild injuries were much less prone to exhibiting memory and cognitive function problems than the other children.

Elk & Elk

School Performance After Brain Injury

One experiment focused specifically on the academic performance of children before and after an injury was presented in 2004. Researchers observed 67 school-aged subjects who suffered from mild, moderate or severe injuries. Both the parents and the children were interviewed two years after the diagnosis.

Two-thirds exhibited behavioral problems. The difference was statistically significant in comparison to the behavior of the control group. Of these, 76 percent also had school work difficulties.

The researchers concluded that brain injuries could potentially have a significant impact on academic performance. Screening may be required to identify behavioral problems and suggest more adequate educational options for such children.

Going Back to School after Brain Injury?

Another issue worth considering is the ability of youngsters who experience brain injuries to go back to school. Archives of Disease in Childhood examined this question in a thorough 2004 report.

The study focused on 67 children with mild, moderate or severe injuries.

Upon their return, 27 percent of the subjects required special educational arrangements. Special educational needs were identified in 24 percent. The most troubling aspect of the study is that only nine percent of the youngsters received specialized assistance upon their return.

Memory and attention or concentration problems were the most common contributing factors leading to issues with schoolwork for the ones that sustained an injury to the brain. Nearly 50 percent had a reading age that was one year lower than their chronological age. The difference was two years for a third of the children in the study.

The conclusion that researchers reached was that many parents and teachers do not have the necessary information about traumatic brain injuries and the impact these could have on the academic performance of a child. Thus, it’s incredibly important for hospital professionals to potentially make suggestions and give parents the facts upon the child’s discharge.