I had a lot of wonderful clients during my years working at the Shepherd Center. While I have MANY favorites, today I want to tell you about one of the first high school students I ever worked with. Because there is so much I want to talk about pertaining to my client and the in-depth nature of helping someone get back to school after a brain injury, I have decided to break this post up into three parts.
A little back story.
This young lady was attending a private, theatre arts high school at the time of her injury. On a regular school day she was found at the bottom of a staircase and they later determined that she had probably had a seizure while walking to class and subsequently fell down the stairs. Scary, right? I say ‘probably’ because no one was able to give her or her family a definitive reason (as far as I know) for her sudden tumble down a flight of stairs.
I feel like one of the reasons this client has stuck with me for so many years is how much she reminded me of me (I know, egotistical much?). One of the challenging, and frankly, terrifying aspects of brain injury is its ability to be an ‘equal opportunity’ injury. What I mean is, it can happen to anyone.
Nothing is more humbling than meeting someone that makes you realize: This could happen to me.
Enough about me though, back to the main character in our story. She was funny and goofy, had an amazing heart and I looked forward to getting to work with her every day. By the time she and I started working together, she was walking independently and we were able to start addressing some high level thinking skills with the ultimate goal of getting her back to school.
Where do we start when working on such a huge goal like getting back to school?
What if you don’t have anymore outpatient benefits?
What if all the speech therapy options near you work primarily with small children saying their “R’s” and not adolescents recovering from a catastrophic neurological change?
This is when we get to be creative!
Remember, keep the function while working on important cognitive skills.
I like to start by breaking down what skills are important for being successful in a classroom. This can be as simple as making a list of some basic classroom expectations:
1. Sitting still at a desk (attention) and going to several classes (endurance)
2. Listening and following directions (understanding language or fancy talk: receptive language/auditory comprehension)
3. Taking notes (writing, understanding language, extra attention: listening and writing at the same time)
4. Taking a test (reading, writing, attention, memory, problem solving)
Bottom line: the classroom is an EXTREMELY demanding environment. Returning to school should NEVER be taken lightly. Now that we’ve defined some of the elements involved in being a student, it’s important to think of activities or tasks that can safely mimic the skills that we are trying to work on. With my client we started with attention and memory.
I wanted to treat our time together like a class so I gave her homework assignments with various due dates. Some would be due the next day while others required more long-term planning including:
- Writing a short paper (maybe start with a paragraph) about a topic of interest. As this gets easier we can start making the content harder – reading an article or a chapter in a book and writing a report with a specific length requirement
- Schedule a test – it can be helpful to start with vocabulary so that the ‘study planning’ is straight forward meaning memorize specific information versus having to study a ‘concept’ to complete a written essay test
The most important thing is starting simple and building the complexity over time. We all need success and if you are giving yourself something that is too challenging, you are more likely to get frustrated and give up.
It’s not about ‘doing it the way you used to’ right away. We are trying to see HOW your brain completes these tasks and if it’s too much, THAT’S OK!!
I can’t say it enough: You have been through something that has changed you forever.
It DOES NOT mean that you can’t go back to school, it just means we may need to ask for accommodations in the classroom that will allow you to be just as successful as you were before your injury.
Stay tuned for Part Two! Next week we’ll explore the making of a Return to School report.
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