Cognitive, social, and health functioning of children with TBI engaged in a formal support program

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Students with traumatic brain injury (TBI) often demonstrate difficulties that impact their successful return to school (RTS). OBJECTIVE: To explore injury severity, age at injury, and time since injury as predictors for performance on measures of cognitive, social and health functioning for students’ participating in a formal RTS cohort at the time of their enrollment in the School Transition After Traumatic Brain Injury (STATBI) research project. METHODS: Outcome measures across cognitive, social, and health domains were analyzed for association with the explanatory variables of interest using quantile regressions and ordinary least squares regression, as appropriate. RESULTS: Students (N = 91) injured after age 13 showed significantly lower cognitive outcomes than students whose injury occurred earlier. Additionally, students more than one-year post-injury demonstrated poorer social outcome on one measure compared to students whose injury occurred more recently. Health outcomes showed no significant association to any predictors. CONCLUSION: The results of this analysis provide a baseline for a group of students with TBI as they enter a RTS research study. This data can now be paired with longitudinal measures and qualitative data collected simultaneously to gain a deeper understanding of how students with TBI present for RTS.