Resources

Technical Assistance

TBI in School Children

Mount Sinai personnel spent several years (under the auspices of a New York State-funded project) providing training on TBI to more than 10,000 educators in all districts and schools in New York City. The focus was on three key aspects of addressing the education needs of children who have experienced a TBI:

• Identifying the children, both those who have been hospitalized and the many more who have not, who are often unknown to their schools as children with a TBI.
• Assessing educational needs of these children appropriately, implying a shift in the assessment paradigm to one that includes a clear focus on defining cognitive challenges in terms that classroom educators can "run with."
• Modifying classrooms to fit the needs of children with TBI, which typically means modifying classrooms to better teach all children.

As a result of this work, training modules broadly useful in educational settings were developed. Additionally, you can download and review the major ideas that were developed and shared with New York City educators, in our publication Students with Traumatic Brain Injury: Identification, Assessment, and Classroom Accommodations.

We provide technical assistance to educators who wish to initiate a program to better identify, assess and meet the classroom needs of the large number of children in schools today who have identified or unidentified TBI. After consulting with the interested party, a plan is developed to implement a program suitable for that educational site. The plan will describe the activities constituting the program and, if relevant, may cover the purchase of training materials, technical assistance to "train the trainers," travel, and continuing technical assistance to support implementation of the planned program.

If you are interested in obtaining more information about technical assistance, please e-mail Dr. Wayne Gordon at wayne.gordon@mssm.edu or Dr. Mary Hibbard at mary.hibbard@mssm.edu who together lead our effort to help educators address the needs of students with TBI.