Assessment of school-age children with TBI (Riccardi et al., 2022)

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe evidenced-based assessment practices for school-age children with any severity of traumatic brain injury (TBI) that could inform the practice of speech-language pathologists (SLPs).

Method: A scoping review of the literature was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. Included studies were assigned thematic labels related to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health framework.

Results: A total of 30 articles met inclusion criteria for this study. Most studies included adolescent or teenage participants with mild TBIs in the acute stages of recovery. Twenty-two different assessments were reported on for children with TBI addressing body structure/function (n = 19 assessments), activities and participation (n = 1 assessment), and contextual factors (n = 3 assessments).

Conclusions: Current assessments have a clear focus on body structure/function for adolescents after childhood TBI, with little research evidence to address activities and participation or contextual factors. The limited amount of functional assessments directly related to the SLP scope of practice stresses the need for additional research on ecologically valid and comprehensive assessment approaches for school-age children with TBI. The results of this review could be utilized as a resource in providing theoretical, evidence-based, and person-centered evaluation methods for children with TBI.

Supplemental Material S1. Key findings of the assessments included in this review. Key findings highlight information about assessment reliability, validity, and feasibility relevant to the SLP’s scope of practice.

Riccardi, J. S., Crook, L., Oskowski, M., & Ciccia, A. (2022). Speech-language pathology assessment of school-age children with traumatic brain injury: A scoping review. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_LSHSS-22-00049