Essay on Social Problems “Children with Severe Traumatic Brain Injury”
Present paper is meant to discuss the social problems of children with severe traumatic brain injury. This work highlights the requirements of students with severe traumatic brain injury, the peculiarities of education of children with this illness and the measures that our society should take to improve the lives of children with TBI. I am going to discuss the recommendations for schools to get the expert input they need to create programs that will help kids with TBI to avoid failures and to study at schools.
What Happens When a Child Has TBI?
We used to think that kids were amazingly flexible little beings who could quickly recover after the most severe trauma. Today we realize that kids are as defenseless as adults. Little boys and girls with injuries often look fine within a few weeks, months or even years. However, as they grow up, that part of the brain previously hurt may not work as nicely as it should (How does TBI differ for those injured as children?).
Traumatic brain injury is one of the main causes of disability and death in children. Parents struggle hard to cope with their emotions of the horrible accident with their child. They suffer from difficulty of not having the time to grave for the lost of their child because the body of the child may be the same but, the child’s behavior and thinking is complete different. Also, the parents face a difficult task of overwhelming medical information, to help the child. But, in spite of the difficulties people must help those kids with unconditioned love and stability at home, school and society.
The Causes and Risk Factors for TBI
Half of all severe brain injuries happen due to accidents involving automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles. Some TBIs are caused by violence and few accidents happen due to sports injuries. Of course, it is difficult to control everything in the child’s life. And naturally, parents should let their kids play contact sports and ride on bicycles. But it is very important to make all these situations safer. “I’m all for healthy, active lifestyles and engagement for kids. But I think we need to look at what the risk factors are and reduce them” (James Kelly, 2008).
Poor emotional control
Once the educator has found out that the child is in need of particular education services, the school may start to create the individual plan of education. The major problem for the severe traumatic brain injury children is the impulsive behavior; they can hurt others and themselves during a very bad tantrum. It may be extremely dangerous. Like a newborn child, the child who has a severe traumatic brain injury must have a bound with a care giver so that he or she could feel safe. Tasks that the educator considers to be simple may be hard for the child, and this may result in unexpected reaction like crying. When a child becomes violent, it is essential to understand that this behavior could have been precipitated by many events, including fatigue or frustration. Remove the kid from the frustrating circumstances and provide a calm place to relax. A short term memory makes it extremely difficult to work with a therapist since the children forget most of the daily information. So, the school nurse, classroom teachers, and family should cooperate to deal with problems student may experience.
How can our society help children with TBI?
It is very important to see the national effort to improve the health of young boys and girls who have life threatening injuries or illnesses. These efforts have got to concentrate on evolving medical care services, educating professionals who serve kids, collect information to identify requirements, create permanent quality improvement methodology and prevention programs, and eliminate financial barricades to health care. In the end, schools are the major providers of services to kids with brain injuries. Schools should work together with medical and rehabilitation centers to help children reenter school and plan educational services.
I want to clarify that there are only two schools to assist children with TBI in New York. One school is the May Center Institution, in Boston. The other is in State New York and there are one to two years of waiting list. In addition, even for those kids who are referred for rehabilitation services, not many specific centers exist, which are dedicated to pediatrics. Therefore, children often obtain services in adult programs by adult-trained therapists. After the children become physically stable they are sent in rehabilitation facilities and then home. Many children may still stay in wheelchairs. And they are not capable to express themselves. Later, as they start to walk, to talk and to realize some of the social demands and expectations of society, the children experience horrible temper tantrums. The safety will become priority for their lives. And the New York school’s educators do not have the proper training, to cope with the severe traumatic brain injury children. Most schools try to educate the students by prevention and nothing else.
As children with severe TBI have special needs and the state of New York does not have enough schools and experienced educators, the state should create training programs for educators. Our society has to prepare the especial need teachers with a strong training to help the severe traumatic brain injury children. Safety and behavioral techniques, it’s a must. The state of New York should focus on training of teachers working in state public schools. If educators are well trained, the state may not need to erect special schools for kids with severe TBI.
What should schools understand about helping children with TBI?
It is significant to provide training on TBI to educators in all schools in New York. The main focus should be on three major aspects of addressing the education needs of children with TBI – identification, assessment and classroom accommodation (Hibbard, Gordon, Martin, Raskin, Brown, 2001). Let’s discuss these aspects more thoroughly.
Identification: some important steps may be taken by teachers to address troubles of misclassification and non-identification of children with traumatic brain injuries. First, screening of present pupils may be done to identify children with possible injuries. Second, kids who have been identified in the school should be followed yearly, to determine if delayed academic problems related to the TBI appear as the child grows up. Procedures should be created within a school system to track kids with TBI. Third, teachers should be trained to notice the nature of injuries and to refer the students for screening. Lastly, all teachers should know that identification is the vital first step, without which neither suitable assessment nor accommodations can be established.
Cognitive assessment: Traditional school-based assessment concentrates on intellectual, emotional and academic functioning. Cognitive assessment identifies the cognitive substrate underlying academic failure, like problems in attention, memory and executive function. Usual assessment can’t correspond to the challenge of TBI, as questions built into these assessments are “off-target” for children with TBI (Hibbard, Gordon, Martin, Raskin, Brown, 2001). So, school-based assessment teams can either refer the child for neuropsychological evaluation or add new tools to the data-gathering tool kit. With the help of administering traditional and cognitive tests, educators will be capable to see cognitive strengths and troubles in children with TBI.
Classroom accommodation: How can teachers meet the challenge when teaching children with special needs? Many kinds of modifications in the classroom may be utilized to assist students with TBI. First, the educator may change the external world to better fit the requirements of the child with TBI. For example, environmental distractors (a noisy classmate, windows) may be lessened by changing where the child is seated. Second, the educator may alter the teaching tools. For instance, pupils with memory problems should learn to utilize a daily organizer as a helpful memory system. Third, the educator may modify the pacing of teaching. For example, regular breaks for the student with TBI may be scheduled during the day to lessen problems arising from tiredness. Fourth, the educator may alter teaching style. The teacher should not rush or challenge the student. This is a useful style for students who process information slowly. Most important, the educator may change the hopes and values that are usually built into teaching. For instance, sometimes the learning can best be checked by recognition tests (for instance by multiple choice). And one of the most important keys to success is constancy. Teachers of one student need to agree on a strategy and use it consistently throughout the day and week (Hibbard, Gordon, Martin, Raskin, Brown, 2001).
Conclusion
So, in present paper I have discussed the main social problems of children with TBI. I underlined the major causes of the injury, the peculiarities of education of children with this illness and the measures that our society should take to improve the lives of children with TBI.
Missed TBI usually follows by school failure, conflict between parents and the school and the student’s becoming demoralized. The parents of ill children should work with their child’s healthcare provider to know if the child needs to be estimated, to learn how to control symptoms of worsening, and to create a plan for lessening the risk of potential injuries. In addition, the state should provide students with TBI with the support of social workers, who can assist them with integrating in society. Medical and educational specialists have to understand that school reintegration is best applied by coordinated systems of care, rather than sending child from one system to another. Thus, the original educational program should be a union of the school, the health care facility and the family.
