Traumatic Brain Injury

Question 1

What can cause a traumatic brain injury?

Answer 1

Falls (most common); sports-related activities; blasts from war; automobile accidents; drug and alcohol abuse; preexisting learning disorders; being hit in the head by a moving object or hitting your head against a stationary object

Question 2

What symptoms of a traumatic brain injury are concurrent with symptoms of left hemisphere damage?

Answer 2

mutism; reduced word fluency; reduced naming; perseverations; circumlocutions; vague speech; incomprehensible language; confabulations (i.e., making up events); difficulties reading and writing; circumlocutions; motor speech disorder, namely dysarthria.

Question 3

What symptoms of a traumatic brain injury are concurrent with symptoms of right hemisphere brain damage?

Answer 3

difficulty understanding abstract language and non-verbal communication (e.g., facial expressions, emotions, gestures, and body language); difficulty with maintaining topics or initiating conversations and with taking turns in conversation. Lack of narrative cohesion and prosody.

Question 4

What are consequences of a traumatic brain injury?

Answer 4

easily irritated; may act like a child; poor memory; delusions; hallucinations; struggle to think and plan; dysphagia; may want to socially isolate themselves; struggle to control their emotions

Question 5

What does an SLP assess when dealing with a person with a TBI?

Answer 5

Social communication skills (e.g., topic maintenance, eye-contact, understanding what is shared during conversation, reading facial expressions and gestures, turn taking, conversation repair)
Issues with memory, communicating what they need, and understanding what is being said to them
Language, especially if they sound confused or they are repeating phrases
If they are responsive and know where they are
Swallowing
Ability to tell a story and to write
Speech
Quality of life
Daily life
Their ability to name items

Question 6

When treating a person with TBI, an SLP should focus on

Answer 6

helping the person relearn skills used for cognition and to communicate functionally. An SLP should also educate and train all the patient’s communication partners