Students with invisible disabilities such as mental illness or acquired brain injury (ABI) experience multiple barriers that reduce their likelihood of postsecondary course completion. The present study conducted a systematic search of research reporting interventions for students experiencing mental illness or ABI to participate in postsecondary…

The sensitivity of the Trail Making Test to brain damage has been well-established over many years, making it one of the most commonly used tests in clinical neuropsychological evaluations. The current study examined the validity of scores from a newer version of the Trail Making Test, the Comprehensive Trail Making Test (CTMT), in children and…

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) in children and adolescents can significantly affect their lives and educational needs. Deficits are often exhibited in areas such as attention, concentration, memory, executive function, emotional regulation, and behavioral functioning, but specific outcomes are not particular to any one child or adolescent with a…

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death and lifelong disability in the United States for individuals below the age of 45. Current estimates from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) indicate that at least 1.4 million Americans sustain a TBI annually. TBI affects 475,000 children under age 14 each year in the United States alone.…

A known-groups design was used to determine the classification accuracy of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS-III) variables in detecting malingered neurocognitive dysfunction (MND) in traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBI patients were classified into the following groups: (a) mild TBI not-MND (n = 26), (b) mild TBI MND (n = 31), and (c)…

This study examined the sensitivity and false-positive error rate of reliable digit span (RDS) and the WAIS-III Digit Span (DS) scaled score in persons alleging toxic exposure and determined whether error rates differed from published rates in traumatic brain injury (TBI) and chronic pain (CP). Data were obtained from the files of 123 persons…

This study investigated the ability to describe and categorize common objects following brain injury. Thirteen subjects with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and 13 noninjured controls participated in this project. The project consisted of 3 parts: 1. A spontaneous condition, 2. A training session, and 3. An application condition.…

The present study determined specificity and sensitivity to malingered neurocognitive dysfunction (MND) in traumatic brain injury (TBI) for several Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) Digit Span scores. TBI patients (n = 344) were categorized into one of five groups: no incentive, incentive only, suspect, probable MND, and definite MND.…

Whether performance patterns on four variables from the California Verbal Learning Test could differentiate patients with moderate or severe brain injuries from those with mild injuries giving incomplete effort was studied with 46 patients, half of whom were in litigation. The test appeared to be useful as part of an evaluation of brain injury.…

Approaches to the analysis of utterance disruptions are reviewed, and a system is proposed for analyzing disruptions in spontaneous language, with four disruption categories (pauses, repetitions, revisions, and orphans). Use of the system is illustrated using language samples from 10 traumatically brain-injured and 10 normally developing speakers…

This article addresses the advantages, disadvantages, and possible solutions to increased administrative problems posed by five proposed new categories of behavioral disorders: (1) attention deficit disorder, (2) traumatic brain injury, (3) fetal alcohol syndrome, (4) prenatal substance abuse, and (5) fragile X syndrome. (DB)

The Conners Rating Scale was used to identify psychoeducational, neuropsychological, and sociobehavioral variables in attempting to define subtypes within a population of 95 children (mean age 10.6 years) with learning disabilities (LD) or documented brain damage. Results supported the sociobehavioral component in LD subtyping and parallels…

Three studies observed everyday communication of people with aphasia, traumatic brain injury, and in hospital. Simplification of real-life communication in the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health, variability of item sampling in existing assessments, and the complexity of real-life…

This article reviews the most frequent causes of seizure disorders in young children and the classification of different seizure types. It discusses current therapies, including alternatives to medication. Emergency response to seizures is covered a well as non-epileptic episodes that may resemble seizures. Epilepsy's potential impact on the…

This study examined validity of the School Function Assessment (SFA) and interrater reliability of occupational therapist and teacher ratings of students' school function. The validity of the SFA was examined using the known-group method in 35 participants in kindergarten through 7th grade attending elementary schools; 15 students with learning…