Cautions When Evaluating a Student for TBI

TBI is Different from Other Disabilities

A traumatic brain injury differs from other disabilities because it results from a sudden external event. A student may have some abilities that remain unchanged and also have abilities that have been lost or altered.

Common challenges associated with TBI:

• History of functioning at a higher level.
• Use of strategies that were effective before the TBI but no longer work post-injury.
• Dramatic changes (especially in the first few years after the injury).
• Uneven and variable learning rates.
• Difficulty with self-awareness or only has a partial awareness of difficulties.
• Difficulty controlling emotions.

Cautions to Consider

A student’s difficulties can be masked by rapid progress in:

• Physical recovery,
• Speech recovery,
• Recovery of some earlier skills,
• Previous strong abilities.

A student’s difficulties can be masked during formalized assessment because:

• Structured testing settings can provide organizational support beyond the student's own abilities,
• Only a brief attention span is required for most standardized assessment tasks,
• Formal assessments tend to present a series of focused tasks,
• Formal assessments are delivered in a quiet environment without distractions,
• During formal assessment, only one person is speaking to student.
• Assessment results become invalid quickly if the student recovers abilities that were previously lost.

Executive Functions:

Executive abilities (planning, starting, stopping, organizing, understanding social situations, etc.) are not often measured on tests used in schools – yet the student may need specially designed instruction to acquire these skills.