Many lower level students are living with the effects of Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) from trauma, such as concussions, infection, and strokes. They struggle, while other students are learning and progressing. No matter how many times and ways we cover the same material, do the same activities, these struggling students still battle and labour to learn. It’s a situation of snakes and ladders. One day they seem to get it, have some sort of breakthrough, only to return to their old patterns of difficulty. Teacher and student have to begin all over again.
The Damaged Brain
It’s important for teachers to know that it’s the physical damage to the brain that is the problem. With brain damage, the brain isn’t able to create new neurons. Once a neuron has been damaged, it can’t reconnect or heal itself. Once a neuron is injured and dies, that’s when the damage occurs. Knowing what happens when the brain sustains physical damage can help a teacher create specialized materials and devise strategies that are different from those for students with healthy, or undamaged, brains.
Conventional pedagogy is based on students with healthy brains. The premise of conventional pedagogy is that students can learn the material in a timely manner. Students with ABI, however, do not fit into the conventional pedagogy, and the materials and strategies a teacher uses for students with undamaged brains won’t necessarily work for students dealing with ABI.
Three Suggestions
So, what do you do? How do you differentiate your instruction with a student dealing with ABI so that you can give them a better shot at learning? Here are a few tips: simplicity, structure, and positive reinforcement.
Simple
First, keep materials as simple as possible. Sometimes, for example with computer programs, you can’t. In that case, try to use the easier programs, such as Learning Chocolate, or create your own activities on WordWall. Avoid Elli and Avenue, as they’re not suited for lower level learners, especially Literacy students. When it comes to handouts, keep them neat and clean, with few elements. They should be easy to look at for the student. Include pictures if you can, a few words, large print, and keep the handouts looking the same. Familiarity helps reduce cognitive load for students with ABI.
Structure
Second, provide as much structure as possible. For example, my more advanced Literacy students can write the date — day, month, number, year — without aids. With a struggling student, I use flashcards for the day, month, number, and year, so that the student copies the date rather than tries to recall it from their memory, which they cannot do. Another example of structure is having students complete words by filling in missing letters, instead of writing out the word with only one letter as a clue. For example, M _ n d _ y, for Monday, as opposed to M _ _ _ _ _, for the other students.
Positive Reinforcement
Finally, students with ABI are battling negative self-talk. Here’s something to think about: When marking tasks, do you use Xs? Do you use red ink? Do you use the words Pass/Fail on your tasks? Do red Xs foster a growth mindset? Or, do they reinforce the already entrenched negative self-image a student has that they can’t learn? Look for ways, no matter how small, to encourage a student with ABI and to bolster their self-confidence.
Two Resources
These are only a few tips. Teaching students with ABI is a complex topic that requires in-depth coverage. To help you some more, I’ve included links to two excellent articles to help you understand brain damage better, and, more importantly, to help you teach these students more effectively.
(Note: you need to download the handbook with the second link.)
Derek Czajkowski
Derek teaches at St. Louis Adult Learning and Continuing Education Centre in Kitchener, Ontario. He taught at colleges and universities in the Sultanate of Oman for eighteen years. He holds a B.A. in English Literature from Trent University, and a TESL Certificate from Conestoga College. Derek is also a playwright, fiction writer, an avid walker, jogger, and a Kitchener Rangers fan.