Coping With Brain Injury:
The Role of a Neuropsychological Assessment

Brain injuries, even mild ones, are more serious than we once thought. It is wonderful to see more awareness about the potential impact of concussions, but there continues to be a lot of misinformation about brain injuries.

Some injuries to the brain can resolve relatively quickly while other issues can linger much longer, sometimes permanently.

It is estimated that 90% of brain injuries that children and teens experience result from an impact to the brain, with 25% of the injuries being severe enough to require rehabilitation services.

Brain injuries can be highly impactful to the person suffering the injury as deficits can occur in areas such as attention, thinking, learning, language, memory and emotions. Not to mention the impact that the injury can have on the family unit as well.

So, do you know what to do next to help your child or teen? A Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) can provide a scan of the brain that can help to identify if there are any abnormalities in the brain resulting from the injury.

A Neuropsychological assessment can also be useful to help identify if there any deficits in brain functioning, as well as provide recommendations to help improve or better manage any areas in which your child or teen could be struggling.

An assessment will also provide recommendations to help improve or better any areas of difficulty.

Recording of Workshop:


Recommended Resources

Websites:

Flashcards:

  • Feelings Flashcards by Todd Parr (I will usually hide them around the room, or use them as ‘stepping stones’ for the child to walk or jump on)... they don’t have to be used for “flashcard” only purposes
  • Feelings in a Flash, Emotional Intelligence Flashcards by Pint-Size Scholars

Books for Parents:

  • Helping Your Anxious Child, 2nd Edition (Rapee, Wignall, Spence, Cobham & Lyneham, 2008)
  • Freeing Your Child From Anxiety, Revised and Updated Edition (Chansky, 2014)

Books for Children:

  • What to Do When You Worry Too Much: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Anxiety (Huebner & Matthews, 2005)
  • What to Do When You Feel Too Shy: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Social Anxiety (Freeland, Toner & McDonnell, 2016)
  • What to Do When You Don’t Want to be Apart: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Separation Anxiety (Lavallee, Schneider & McDonnell, 2017)
  • What to Do When Your Brain Gets Stuck: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming OCD (Huebner & Matthews, 2007)
  • The Anxiety Workbook for Kids: Take Charge of Fears and Worries Using the Gift of Imagination (Alter, Clarke & Burns, 2016)
  • The Worry Workbook for Kids: Helping Children to Overcome Anxiety and the Fear of Uncertainty (Khanna, Ledley & Chansky, 2018)
  • I Bet I Won’t Fret: A Workbook to Help Children with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (Sisemore, 2008)
  • Say Goodbye to Being Shy: A Workbook to Help Kids Overcome Shyness (Brozovich & Chase, 2008)
  • Scaredy Squirrel (Watt, 2008)
  • A Spot of Blue (Bos & Margolese, 2013)
  • Sam’s Big Secret Coping with Fear: Story and Tools (Margolese & Bos, 2016)
  • The Great Big Book of Feelings by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith
  • American Girls book: The Feelings Book (for older girls)
  • Lion’s In a Flap: A book about feeling worried by Sue Graves and Trevor Dunton (specific to anxiety)
  • Worries Go Away by Kes Gray and Lee Wildish (specific to anxiety)
  • Listening To My Body by Gabi Garcia (focuses on physical feelings in the body)

Apps:

  • Daniel Tiger Feelings Game (Might be a charge has option to play music based on feelings, sing songs, draw pictures, etc.
  • Touch and Learn – Emotions (Gives child choice of 4 pictures to choose from)
  • Breath, Think, Do with Sesame (teaches deep breathing and helps with problem solving)

Workshop presented by

Dr. Jennifer Long, Neuropsychologist

Sullivan + Associates Clinical Psychology