A Pilot Study Evaluating Attention and Strategy Training Following Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

The prevalence of impairments in attention, working memory and executive functions associated with traumatic brain injury and developmental childhood diagnoses has resulted in increased research to identify effective treatments. The use of a broad based approach that combines both strategy training (domain specific training) and repetitive drill practice (domain general training), has been investigated in the acquired brain injury population with some promising initial findings although methodological issues and demonstration of transfer of training is challenging. This paper describes a pilot study, evaluating an integrated intervention, Attention Improvement Management (AIM) in eleven participants with cognitive processing impairments due to traumatic brain injury. The paper explores the therapy components that appear to be critical to achieving meaningful improvements in attention, working memory and executive functions using this hybrid approach. The results of the pilot study are analyzed to identify the clinical decisions and behaviors required by clinicians implementing even a highly proceduralized computer intervention such as AIM, in hopes of guiding current practice and improving future research investigations.