The Effects Of Traumatic Brain Injury ( Tbi )

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Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), often called concussions, are very common occurrences in children. These are bruises in the brain which occur when an impact to the head causes the brain to shake back and forth against the skull. Children, including preschoolers, toddlers, and even infants, often bruise or bump their heads from variety of methods, including motor vehicle or bicycle accidents, falls from heights (beds, stairs, etc.), and sport related impacts (Duhaime et al., 1992). Occasionally, these impacts can be hard enough and result in a TBI. Some children may also incur concussions from child abuse (Keenan, Runyan, Marshall, Nocera, & Merten, 2004). Concussions sustained from abuse and different forms of mistreatment often go…show more content…
If diagnosed early and the proper treatment administered, symptoms can significantly decrease. Depending on both the location and the severity of the concussion, symtoms may vary. For example, a brain injury to Broca’s or Wernicke’s areas would likely result in speech and language impairments. Impairments in one or more areas (such as physical, cognitive, or emotional) are common.
It is difficult to determine if a child who has sustained an impact to the head requires medical attention. While young children may have the exact same impairments or symptoms as adults, they may not be symptoms as older children, they may not be expressed in a similar manner. Because of the nature of language development, young children may not be able to explain certain feelings. For example, children up to a year old may only have a one or two word vocabulary, or not have any vocabulary at all. Even children older than that may not have the vocabulary necessary to explain the feeling of nausea.
Furthermore, symptoms such as impairments in speech comprehension or production may be easily observable in adults with fully developed language skills, but are almost undetectable in young children without well-developed language skills.
Long Term Problems Even though concussive symptoms of children and adults is the same, the long term effects are not. While an adult has a fully developed brain, the brain of a child is still developing. For a long
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