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Published on: January 20, 2023
Long-Term School Outcomes of Children and Adolescents With Traumatic Brain Injury
Mary R Prasad1, Paul R Swank, Linda Ewing-Cobbs
1Children's Learning Institute, UT Health, Houston, Texas (Drs Prasad and Ewing-Cobbs); and School of Public Health, UT Health, Houston, Texas (Dr Swank).
Insights
Children with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) face ongoing academic challenges. Younger children with TBI are more vulnerable to developing functional academic skills.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric neurology
- Developmental psychology
- Educational psychology
Background:
- Traumatic brain injury (TBI) in children can significantly impact long-term development and academic performance.
- Understanding the influence of injury characteristics and time since injury is crucial for effective intervention.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how age at injury, injury severity, and time since injury affect long-term school outcomes in children with TBI.
- To compare academic outcomes between children with different types of TBI, orthopedic injuries, and healthy controls.
Main Methods:
- A cross-sectional study design was employed.
- Participants included children with complicated mild/moderate TBI, severe TBI, orthopedic injuries, and healthy controls.
- Data collection involved school records and parental ratings of functional academic skills and school competency.
Main Results:
- Children with severe TBI exhibited higher school service utilization and lower competency ratings compared to orthopedic injury and control groups.
- Children with complicated mild/moderate TBI showed increased need for school support and decreased competence ratings at 6 years post-injury versus 2 years post-injury.
- Younger age at injury correlated with lower functional academic skill ratings.
Conclusions:
- Academic challenges for children with complicated mild/moderate TBI tend to increase over time.
- Younger children are more susceptible to deficits in functional academic skill development following TBI.
Objective:
To better understand the impact of age at injury, severity of injury, and time since injury on long-term school outcomes of children with traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Participants:
Four groups of children: complicated mild/moderate TBI (n = 23), severe TBI (n = 56), orthopedic injury (n = 35), and healthy controls (n = 42). Children with TBI were either 2 years postinjury or 6 years postinjury.
Design:
Cross-sectional design.
Measures:
School records as well as parental ratings of functional academic skills and school competency.
Results:
Children with severe TBI had consistently high usage of school services and low school competency ratings than children with orthopedic injuries and healthy controls. In contrast, children with complicated-mild/moderate TBI were significantly more likely to receive school support services and have lower competence ratings at 6 years than at 2 years postinjury. Students injured at younger ages had lower functional academic skill ratings than those injured at older ages.
Conclusions:
These findings highlight the increasing academic challenges faced over time by students with complicated-mild/moderate TBI and the vulnerability of younger children to poorer development of functional academic skills.
