School After TBI: School Assisted with Progress

School After TBI: Chris Part Six

The return home wasn’t the end of the process of rehabilitation from the coma, just another step. Chris’s Mom also talks about her return to school after TBI :

Nothing really changed as far as her coming home and her routine. She got up at 6:30 in the morning and went to her physical therapies, speech therapies before she went to school. So, you know, it was pretty much like when she was at Juno. You get up and you start your day and, you know, you continue on with it. Where when she came home, she did the same. She was up, you know, had a plan, had her day laid out for her and went to school.

I don’t think she had a hard time remembering who (her friends) were, because she knew who they were. She knew things that they did, maybe just not names exactly right away. They were very helpful. They always came over to visit her. They talked to her. They would just spend lots of time with her, because, you know, she couldn’t really go anywhere. If they had their license, you know, as they got older, they would take her places, go to the mall, shopping, whatever. There was always people calling or coming over, you know, asking if they could do anything, just asking if I needed any help with Jessica. There was always people there to say they would help.

Accommodations Were Made for Chris when She Returned to School After TBI

Chris becomes a better source for information as it gets further from the time of her injury. Chris talks about how everyone helped her to back to school after TBI:

I got really good help in school because I went back to high school and everyone at school helps me. I was in like the LD classroom where it was more one-on-one. I felt really dumb. (But) they helped me a lot (with) my schoolwork and being in school, remembering, writing.

I graduated right on time because my high school took my therapy time in the hospital as credits for school.

High school, with its mandated accommodations became an extension of her therapy, but once the structure and commitment of high school after TBI was past, her education ended.

I tried going to the tech for like the year after I graduated. I was told it would be better to get right into school so you would forget less. So I did but I went in at semester. But they didn’t know what to do with me. Like they didn’t know what I should go for.

The structure that comes with high school, getting up everyday at a certain time, having mandated rules that must be followed, is clearly something that is missing after she graduates.

Part Seven – Return to Work and Vocational Disability