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The reservation can be a dangerous place. Icy conditions, bad roads, blowing snow, drug use, alcohol use - a group of factors make accidents much more common on the reservation. A Native American child has a much greater risk of being injured or killed in a car accident than a qhite child. Motor vehicle accidents are the second leading cause of traumatic brain injury in children. Traumatic brain injuries can be devastating to parents and families due to the dramatic changes it causes in everyone’s life. Some symptoms may appear right away, while others may not show up for days or weeks after the TBI/concussion. Individuals with a TBI can be physically healthy but have a variety of memory and cognitive problems and show significant changes in behavior. The patient’s family members, and doctors may miss some problems. The child or adolescent may look fine even though they’re acting or feeling differently. |
A traumatic brain injury can also change how a student learns and acts in school. The signs of brain injury can be very different depending on where the brain is injured and how severely. Children with TBI may have physical disabilities, difficulities in thinking, emotional or behavioral problems. A child may have any one of these problems or all of them.
Since the brain is very complex, every brain injury is different.
The above is a very, very important statement. Teachers may feel that, "I had a child with a traumatic brain injury in my classroom before and he did not have the problems this child does, so it must be lack of discipline or a bad attitude." This is not to say that a student with a disability never lacks discipline or has a bad attitude. After all, a child with a disability is a child first, and anyone with much experience with children can confidently state that all children can test one's patience at times, and sometimes it IS on purpose.
To read more about traumatic brain injury, please click here .