Dr. Thomas Campbell, executive director of the Callier Center and Sara T. Martineau Professor in Communication Disorders, and Dr. Christine Dollaghan, a professor at Callier, are lead authors of an article examining the effects of traumatic brain injury in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
Using the percentage of consonants correct-revised (PCC-R) metric, the researchers evaluated 56 children injured under the age of 11 over 12 monthly sessions, beginning when the child produced more than10 words. At each session, odds of normal-range PCC-R were compared in children injured at younger and older ages. The researchers then calculated correlations between final PCC-R and age at injury, injury mechanism, gender, maternal education, residence, treatment, Glasgow Coma Score and intact brain volume.
The PCC-Rs varied within and between children. The odds of normal-range PCC-R were significantly higher for children injured at a later age than the younger group. Over a 12-month period, severe traumatic brain injury had more adverse effects for children whose ages placed them in the most intensive phase of speech-language development than for children injured later.
Article: “Consonant accuracy after severe pediatric traumatic brain injury: a prospective cohort study”
