Children and Young People
“Different than before” - Social Cognition and Judgment in Adolescents with Brain Injury
By Jessica Sweeney, MS Ed, CCC-SLP
Many adolescents who have sustained brain injuries have difficulty socializing within their normal social environments. Depending on the areas of the brain that were injured, there are potential language, social and cognitive impairments that can have profound impacts on the individual’s ability to interact appropriately. The decrease in language and social judgment can have some implications on the social life of the person with a brain injury.
Managing Challenging Behaviors in Children and Adolescents After Brain Injury
By Brad Ross, PhD, a Pediatric Neuropsychologist at Children’s Specialized Hospital in Mountainside and a member of the Brain Injury Association of New Jersey’s Children & Adolescents Committee
Managing challenging behaviors after pediatric brain injury can be a challenge. While many areas of the brain can influence behavior there are two areas most often injured, the frontal and temporal lobes. The frontal area of the brain is responsible in part for executive skills functioning and involved in learning to adapt an individual’s affect, behavior, and cognition to the changing demands of complex environments. These processes include self‐regulation and self‐monitoring, problem solving, reasoning, goal formulation, and learning from the consequences of one’s behavior. A child’s brain is a developing brain and the frontal area continues to mature through early adulthood.