Describing the Composition of Individualized Education Plans for Students With Traumatic Brain Injury.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the features of Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) for a cohort of students with traumatic brain injury (TBI) to help elucidate current special education practices for students with TBI. Method We obtained permission from administrators of a local school district of 41,000 students in a Midwestern state to review de-identified IEP records of students verified with TBI. We examined demographic information (i.e., cause and age at time of injury), IEP services and intensity, IEP goal categories, and previous verification status. Results Descriptive results support that intervention services were more intense for students with TBI with greater lengths of time postinjury. Target behaviors within goals were more often related to math and reading than to the cognitive processes that govern these skills, such as attention, memory, and executive functioning. Finally, more than a third of our sample had been verified with a disability and were receiving special education services via an IEP prior to their TBI. Conclusions This work represents an important first step in understanding the special education services for students with TBI. Future research should explore interventions that are ecologically valid for school-based settings and are developed to address the idiosyncratic deficits of students with TBI, particularly interventions that focus on the underlying cognitive processes experienced by these students.

Speech-Language Pathologists' Comfort Providing Intervention to Children With Traumatic Brain Injury: Results From a National Survey.

Purpose This exploratory study examined speech-language pathologists' (SLPs) clinical experience and work environment characteristics impacting comfort with providing intervention to children with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Method This study included 162 SLPs who responded to a national survey about their comfort providing intervention to children with TBI, clinical experience (i.e., years of experience treating children with TBI, TBI preprofessional training and professional development, and licensure/credentialing), and work environment (i.e., work setting, caseload size, geographic location). Results Findings from latent class analysis revealed 3 distinct groups of SLPs based on their comfort with providing services to children with TBI: those with low comfort, moderate comfort, and high comfort. Further analyses revealed statistically significant differences across the 3 groups in the areas of years of experience treating children with TBI, professional development, work setting, TBI caseload size, and geographic location. Conclusions Our findings reveal that most SLPs feel comfortable providing intervention to children with TBI; however, differences in characteristics across groups suggest that specific steps can be taken to ensure increased comfort for all SLPs working with this population. Practicing SLPs may increase their level of comfort through professional development and hands-on, mentored experience with TBI. Efforts such as these may influence the quality of service provision and expand the population of SLPs who feel comfortable treating children with TBI. Future research is needed to further examine how comfort and SLP characteristics directly impact the quality of speech and language intervention and long-term outcomes of children with TBI.

Text-to-speech accommodations for the reading challenges of adults with traumatic brain injury.

OBJECTIVE: This study's purpose was two-fold: (a) to confirm differences in silent reading rates of individuals with and without traumatic brain injury (TBI) and (b) to determine the effect of text-to-speech (TTS) on reading comprehension and efficiency by individuals with TBI. DESIGN AND METHODS: Ten adults with severe TBI answered comprehension questions about written passages presented in three conditions: reading only (RO), listening to TTS presentation only (LO) or reading and listening to TTS simultaneously (RL). The researchers compared reading rate, comprehension accuracy and comprehension rate (efficiency) across conditions. RESULTS: Analysis revealed significantly slower silent reading rates for the participants with TBI than for readers without TBI (n = 75). Also, participants with TBI achieved higher comprehension accuracy for factual than inferential questions; however, no significant main effect for comprehension accuracy emerged across reading conditions. In contrast, using comprehension rate as the dependent measure, analysis confirmed a significant main effect for reading condition and question type; post-hoc pairwise comparisons revealed that the RL condition yielded higher comprehension rate scores than the RO condition. CONCLUSIONS: As a group, adults with TBI appear to benefit in reading efficiency when simultaneously listening to and reading written passages; however, differences exist that reinforce the importance of individualizing treatment.

Text-to-speech technology effects on reading rate and comprehension by adults with traumatic brain injury.

OBJECTIVE: This study's purpose was to examine the comprehension, rate and perceptions and reading preferences of adults with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) when reading passages with and without computerized text-to-speech (TTS) support. DESIGN AND METHODS: Nine adults with severe TBI read 24 passages in two conditions: with and without TTS support. The researchers compared reading rate and comprehension accuracy across conditions. Also, participants rated their perceived performance and reading preferences via a follow-up questionnaire. RESULTS: Comparison to normative data revealed that all nine participants read slower than average neurotypical readers. As a group, participants read significantly faster with TTS support than without such support, even though the TTS reading rate was roughly comparable to the oral rather than silent reading rate of neurotypical adults. No significant differences in comprehension resulted between the two conditions. Over half of the participants preferred the TTS condition over the no-TTS condition. In general, participants were inaccurate in judging their relative reading rates and comprehension accuracy across conditions. CONCLUSIONS: TTS may improve reading efficiency without compromising reading comprehension accuracy for adults with TBI. Given this finding, some survivors may find use of TTS technology contributes to increased participation in and efficiency when performing reading activities.