Date of Award

4-2003

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences

Department

Speech Pathology and Audiology

First Advisor

Dr. Nickola W. Nelson

Second Advisor

Adelia Van Meter

Third Advisor

Dr. Diane Dirette

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

This study was designed to evaluate the Pediatric Test of Brain Injury (PTBI), as well as to examine information obtained from informal measures in assessing children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Three students with TBI and three grade- and gender- matched subjects participated in this study. All six students were administered the PTBI, and their performances were given raw scores, rated for level of difficulty in performing the tasks, and compared among and across the two groups. The students with TBI were interviewed by the graduate student researcher regarding self-perceptions of their strengths and weaknesses. In addition, their teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding academic function and classroom behavior. The results of the interviews and surveys were compared with the results of the participants' performances on the PTBI.

The students with TBI had great difficulty with spoken and written discourse tasks involving retelling a story and combining sentences, pragmatic skills for telling how someone would respond given a brief scenario, and digit span memory. The groups performed similarly on tasks involving visual memory, vocabulary skills, and reading fluency. Participant interviews, teacher surveys, and the PTBI results for the participants with TBI were generally consistent with one another. The interviews and surveys, however, focused on cognitive-behavioral issues, whereas the PTBI specified cognitive-linguistic strengths and needs.

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