School work can be a real shock to you after having your ABI. This is because your ABI may have affected the way your brain learns. Things that you found easy before might be hard for you now. Learning and school work can then become very difficult. Just because you are back to school, it doesn’t mean your brain has fully adjusted yet. Be kind and patient with yourself.

Here are some things that can affect your ability to learn:

• Frontal lobe and temporal lobe damage: This part of the brain does most of our learning. The temporal lobes also figure out what is being said to us so damaging this part of the brain can make listening and learning really difficult. Even small changes in the brain can have a big affect on your learning.
• Attention : In our section on attention we looked at how attention affects your learning. Having a short attention span can stop you learning new things.
• Memory:  Remembering facts and things you already know can be hard so it can be difficult to learn new things.
• Organisation:  A lot of school learning needs your brain to be well organised. Sometimes you struggle with organisation and this can stop learning too.
• Reading and writing: Reading and writing uses lots of different parts of the brain. If you have damaged any parts of the brain that help you read and write, school work becomes very difficult and this can be really upsetting.

You will find you will need to spend some time re-learning things you used to know. This is so the brain can try to unlock the knowledge you had before you brain injury. This can be a slow and frustrating process although over time you will find that things you used to know will start to come back to you. You may find old knowledge comes back quickly but learning new stuff is hard.  

Getting the support you need

Your teachers will check how you are doing and they may introduce you to new work when they feel you can cope. School can be seen as your next stage of rehabilitation so that you are given only as much work as your can do without stressing yourself out.

If you are struggling at school, please tell someone. If your parents and teachers feel that you need to be assessed so that they can figure out how best to help you, they might be able to ask the Local Authority for a 'statutory assessment of special need'. Once this has been completed, the authority will issue the school with a statement which will say exactly what your learning needs are and how best these can be helped at school.

Even if you don't have a Statement of Special Educational Need your school will find ways to help you once you get back.  Here are some things the school should look at to help:

• Your teacher should stay in touch with the school educational psychologist so they know how you are coping and how your learning needs are changing 
• Provide you with extra tuition or classroom support
• Provide extra learning resources
• Set up a buddy system to help you find your way to class.

Try not to be too hard on yourself. There is no point setting great big goals just yet because you need to learn to do the little things first. This is frustrating and you will feel cross and stressed about it from time to time. Talk to your friends, family and teachers about this.

Struggling with school work can be difficult for everyone, but having an ABI might now mean the things you used to dream of becoming might not happen now. This can make you and your family feel sad. Think about what you are good at now. Set little goals for each day that comes and build on your strengths.