Inclusion and Students with Traumatic Brain Injuries

Back to School: Academic Functioning and Educational Needs among Youth with Acquired Brain Injury

“…If a student with a brain injury does not qualify for special education, Section 504 (discussed below) offers coverage to address issues that, while not adversely impacting learning, still substantially limits a major life activity. Section 504 plans may also provide an effective means of monitoring “sleeper effects” associated with brain injury [ 139 ].…”

“…Many students who experience a brain injury, especially a mild injury, go untreated and/or do not report the event to hospitals or schools [ 144 ]. Canto et al [ 139 ] indicated that, across a two-year period at a Florida school district, approximately 1300 school children in its district were treated for TBI at the local hospital but only 129 students were being served by the school district’s TBI program. The findings point to how many students with brain injury—in that study, TBI specifically—are not being screened or identified by school districts for appropriate services under Section 504 or IDEA [ 144 ].…”

“…These issues point to the fact that many students with milder forms of brain injury are not being identified and are not receiving any form of educational support. Such support may be lacking for the simple reason that school personnel are uninformed about the brain injury and, thus, injury-related sequelae may be mistaken for other high-incidence disabilities such as emotional or behavioral disturbance, specific learning disability, or speech/language impairment, which may misguide the identification of the most appropriate services [ 139 , 145 , 146 ]. Even in the case of more moderate or severe injuries, there can be problematic communication gaps between medical and educational systems.…”