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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Childhood acquired brain injuries can disrupt communication functions needed for success in school, work and social interaction. Cognitive-communication difficulties may not be apparent until adolescence, when academic, environmental and social-emotional demands increase.
OBJECTIVE: The Functional Assessment of Verbal Reasoning and Executive Strategies for Students (S-FAVRES) is a new activity-level measure of cognitive-communication skills in complex, contextual and integrative tasks that simulate real world communication challenges. It is hypothesized that S-FAVRES performance would differentiate adolescents with and without acquired brain injury (ABI) on scores for Accuracy, Rationale, Reasoning Subskills and Time.
METHODS: S-FAVRES was administered to 182 typically-developing (TD) and 57 adolescents with mild-to-severe ABI aged 12-19. Group differences, internal consistency, sensitivity, specificity, reliability and contributing factors to performance (age, gender, brain injury) were examined statistically.
RESULTS: Those with ABI attained statistically lower Accuracy, Rationale and Reasoning sub-skills scores than their TD peers. Time scores were not significantly different. Performance trends were consistent across tasks, administrations, gender and age groups. Inter-rater reliability for scoring was acceptable.
CONCLUSION: The S-FAVRES provides a reliable, functional and quantifiable measure of subtle cognitive-communication difficulties in adolescents that can assist speech-language pathologists in planning treatment and integration to school and real world communication.
Language: en |