Exploratory Study: An Educationally Based Cognitive Retraining Program

Individuals with acquired brain injury often struggle with recovery from their injuries. This empirical study examined the effectiveness of the Acquired Brain Injury Program at Coastline Community College, an educationally based cognitive rehabilitation program in Costa Mesa, CA. The research design was a one-group pretest-posttest design. Archival data were used for data analyses. A total of 102 participants, ranging in brain injury from mild to severe, were selected. The MicroCog test was administered during pretest and posttest in order to explore change in overall cognitive functioning. An exploratory factor analysis revealed six latent variables contributing to comprising change in cognitive functioning measured by MicroCog. Severity of brain injury was negatively correlated to general cognitive proficiency. The change in information processing accuracy between pretest and posttest was significantly related to the type of injury. These findings suggest that the Acquired Brain Injury Program at Coastline Community College is effective and may contribute to the development of efficient and affordable cognitive rehabilitation programs.

Autorentext

Ralph G. Kuechle, Ph.D., is a Clinical Psychologist licensed in California, USA. Dr. Kuechle has extensive experience in crisis intervention, psychological assessment, and psychotherapy. His area of expertise is the treatment of children/adolescents with severe behavior problems and their families. He graduated from AIU-CSPP, CA, in 2006.