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How Acquired Brain Injuries Differ
The individual with traumatic brain injury is not a peer to other individuals with disabilities. The learning disability has been acquired. Following are some of the characteristics that make them different. Educators and health care professionals must be aware of these differences and their effect on learning in order to appropriately plan for the reintegration process.
- a previous successful experience in academic and social settings
- a pre-morbid self concept of being normal
- discrepancies in ability levels
- inconsistent patterns of performance
- variability and fluctuation in the recovery process, resulting in unpredictable and unexpected spurts of progress
- more extreme problems with generalizing, integrating or structuring information
- poor judgement and loss of emotional control, which make the student appear to be emotionally disturbed at times
- cognitive deficits which are present as in other handicaps but are uneven in extent of damage and rate of recovery
- combinations of conditions resulting from the traumatic brain injury which are unique and do not fall into usual categories of disabilities
- inappropriate behaviors which may be more exaggerated, impulsive, distractible and emotional, coupled with greater difficulty with memory, information processing, organization and flexibility
- learning style which requires utilization of a variety of compensatory and adaptive strategies
- some high level skills which may be intact, making it difficult to understand why the student will have problems performing lower-level tasks
- a previously learned base of information which assists rapid relearning