Pictures to print: a software scaffold to written literacy

Successful school placements require effective written literacy skills. When a student has traumatic brain injury (TBI), written literacy instruction may need to be individualized and intense to facilitate optimal reintegration into the school program. Software products can provide a method that assists in creating the needed individualized, intense experiences. Written literacy-learning experiences span a continuum from preconventional messages expressed through pictures, to conventional printed expressions designed to convey meaning, to the literate writing needed to create stories and reports.

This article is designed to familiarize rehabilitation and research professionals in TBI with the range of written literacy software and to stimulate clinical applications and research related to their use with students who have sustained a TBI.