Academic Possibility After Brain Injury

Written by Julie Taylor

Can I Go To School? Is It Worthwhile?

This is a question on so many people’s minds – whether their brain injury is the result of an accident, chemotherapy (chemobrain), stroke (brain aneurism), heart attack or any other disease or condition.  Most of us will be affected by this question at some time because we tend to change jobs and retrain fairly often – I was shocked to discover that the average lifespan of a job these days is only about 3 – 5 years – and brain injury often happens to the young.  This question, then, really does affect most of us and is worth exploring further and reading up about - here are links to 2 books that give you an excellent foundation of knowlege and an actual speech and language therapy book written by a top speech pathologist for the high functioning client...

Another book - not such an easy read but if you're considering going back to school you may want to 'test' yourself? - is the Handbook of Neurorehabilitation (Neurological Disease and Therapy) (Hardcover) by David Good (Editor) "Assessment of the patient undergoing neurorehabilitation will vary considerably depending on the nature of the underlying neurological illness, the patient's deficits, and, to a certain..."  This book is expensive at $299.95 - although it does include free shipping!  There are secondhand copies of this book too.

I know several people who have gone to university after brain injury. Several more who are working up to it.  And I did it myself...  It's not easy.  Everything is harder - from learning the content, using a pencil, remembering, expressing ourselves, walking along the corridor, getting to school...  The list goes on.  Once we get to school - and that's often difficult on its own - there are often marked differences in how we learn and our ability to retain what we learn. There’s also the question of stamina.

Strategies... The trick is finding out what works for you because ‘what’s best’ is different for everybody – we all have our own way of learning.  Finding your style is not as easy to do as it sounds - because the chances are that your style post-injury will be different to your style – which you’re probably much more familiar with – pre-injury.  Your style may also be a mix of different styles and because you are you, it's very difficult to see yourself objectively and realize the things you can’t do.  On top of that, you probably aren’t doing or trying to do those things naturally – I think it’s just human nature to automatically lean towards what we can do and avoid what we can’t.  If our injury is cognitive, too, good insight into our own needs and abilities could be very difficult for us.

I was very lucky because I had a really good occupational therapist who was able to look at the bigger picture and tell me when I was 'on the mark' and when I wasn't. There are also many private educational and career counsellors who can help you work out what you can do...  This is what I did (about 12 years ago) when we realized that counselling would fit me well and allow me to compete on a level playing field.  It also fit well with my desire - which was strong even when I was ten - to help others.  The whole procedure to find out more about what I wanted, what I could do and what I was good at took about 8 hours and involved a ton of post-it notes!

Being able to look at the bigger picture and zoom down to a more detailed picture and then zoom back out again is often something that survivors of brain injury have trouble with.  Both my speech therapist and my occupational therapist were able to help me do this and choose what I wanted to do – and take the steps I needed to do to get there. A good speech and language therapist can really help to work and ‘stretch’ this ability too.

Self esteem issues are  - BIG.  One MINUTE you're the school star and the next minute, you're flunking...  It’s bewildering and upsetting because you don't really know why...  It’s so easy to start equating how and what you do with who you are…

Many big schools and universities have special academic disabilities counsellors who know exactly what help is available and what modifications can be made.  They don’t only work with the brain injured and disabled but more commonly with those with learning disabilities and ADD (attention deficit disorder). The trick is knowing that we need to ask for their help…  For years I had no idea that I had ‘special needs’ because of my injury and I assumed that a ‘disabilities counsellor’ was just for those with visible physical disabilities.

I have one friend who is taking about 3 times longer to do her degree – but she is doing it and her future looks bright.   She’s in her twenties and she’s chosen a profession that will allow her to compete on a level playing field.  Perfect!  A full academic caseload for her is 2 courses.  She often needs extensions for assignments and is given longer to do exams - they allow her a break after a couple of hours to rest and lie down and eat and then she is allowed to resume again for another hour or two.

The upshot of all this is that she has started to get A's again…  She’s just as intelligent as she always was: she just needed to discover different strategies to learn.

I used to be able to just listen to a lecture and remember it and make a few notes. Now there's no way I can do that, even after 25 years of trying to retrain my brain. However, if I take notes on a keyboard, I remember it all well.  My memory seems to be ‘through my fingers’?  I rarely have to look at my notes.... It took me years to figure that one out for myself – I would love to hear from others as to whether they have discovered ‘odd’ things, like this, about themselves...

There are lots of 'techniques' and strategies that work for different styles of learning- and it's your style of learning tha t may well have changed. I use images a lot. For example, if I have to remember a list - and I can’t write it down - I paint a picture in my mind which has all of the things on the list in it. That's quite effective for me. If you gave me a list of 20 unconnected items and asked me to repeat them as soon as you finish saying them, I might remember 2.  If I paint a picture in my head I will remember about 15. That's a big diffe rence.  I may also ‘remember one or two things that weren’t on the list!

Brain injury does not = stupidity. A good academic disabilities counselor will know these things that I’ve talked about here. Yes you may need to repeat years and get longer to study – but all of these things are possible, whether at highschool, university or college...  It’s also possible to get help with buying a laptop computer, talking text books, a scribe to write for you and lots of other aids to help you to succeed.