TACT, A Resource Free to Nebraska Educators BY TYLER DAHLGREN

TACT, A Resource Free to Nebraska Educators

by TYLER DAHLGREN, NCSA Communication Specialist

If you’ve seen one brain injury, then you’ve seen one brain injury.

That’s more than a saying that’s long been circulating the neuroscience world and beyond, it’s fact. Every brain injury is uniquely its own. So it would make sense for every brain injury to come with its own path to treatment.

“You can’t really have just a standard way of doing things,” said Ross Van Amburg, an occupational therapist with ESU 13 and a seven-year member of the Brain Injury Regional School Support Teams (BIRSST). “You have to meet with a student, understand their needs, and then make adjustments along the way.”

Fortunately, districts in Nebraska have a resource designed to guide educators through that process available at no cost. The Teacher Acute Concussion Tool (TACT) is an online educational resource that equips teachers with differentiated instruction to students with concussions in the classroom. It’s an immediate, user-friendly and, given that Nebraska has “Return to Learn” legislation in place, a necessary resource for schools to utilize.

“The reason I like the TACT is because it directly interfaces with the needs of a teacher in determining what a student with a brain injury or a concussion might need at any given time,” said Van Amburg, who was previously a lead therapist in the brain injury program at the Wyoming State Training School for Developmental Disabilities.

Teachers who suspect a student may be suffering from a concussion simply log the information and observations into the TACT and then receive weekly emails individualized to their student. It’s convenient and streamlined. An entire staff can be trained on the TACT in just 20 minutes.

“It gives teachers a direct resource,” Van Amburg continued. “I’m a direct resource for the schools that I go to. I get calls from families, from nurses, even from students that find me and ask questions. This would be a way to access some of that information directly, skipping over me. It’s a more immediate experience for the student to access the information from the teacher than it is from some outside source that’s going to phone in.”

TACT establishes timelines, providing weekly reminders that come with a set of implications. Most students recover from concussions by week four, and the tool gives its users an idea of where they’re at in the healing process throughout that time.

“The intent was that it was supposed to be an easy, real-time tool for teachers,” said Peggy Reisher, Executive Director for the Brain Injury Alliance of Nebraska. “It’s not something that they were supposed to go and learn about six months ago and then have to try and recall that information. They just have to remember that they have this tool in their toolbox. They just need to log on and it’s going to instruct them on what they need to do.”

TACT uses technology not to cut corners but to provide access to more information, said Van Amburg. It fills the gap that currently exists between an administrator’s knowledge of what to do when a child appears concussed in class.

“It gives them something immediate that they don’t have to wait for a concussion management team to decide,” he said. “They can get the ball rolling themselves by using TACT. If a concussion management team needs to change something, they can. But this just makes it faster, more immediate, and more personal.

“You can’t really have just a standard way of doing things, you have to meet with a student, understand their needs and then make adjustments along the way.”

— Ross Van Amburg Brain Injury Regional School Support Team

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“TACT teacher training is benign, it’s 20 minutes, it can be done at home, and it can potentially prevent long-term issues with depression, anxiety and challenging behavior”

— Dr. Ann McAvoy Get Schooled on Concussion

Van Amburg has paved a career in the field, and he’s been pleased to see brain injury awareness rise in prominence. Now, he’d like to see “Return to Learn” protocols embraced and carried out the same way “Return to Play” protocols were when BIRSST developed that legislation (Nebraska Concussion Awareness Act) in 2012. Brain injuries, of course, aren’t limited to the athletic field, and this tool was designed to help those cases.

“A really good example would be kids that are in preschool or younger that have concussions,” he said. “You don’t have an athletic director available to tell you what to do with kids like that. Their brains are forming and developing, and some of the effects of that concussion might not occur for years. We won’t know about that until it happens. When we look back and say ‘Oh, was that the concussion?’”

That’s why Van Amburg sees the need for a bigger push. The BIA of Nebraska has recently been looking at juvenile justice and the intersection of brain injury. Reisher said kids within the juvenile justice system are more likely to have had a brain injury.

“This is a group that comes across looking like they have behavior problems, that they’re not paying attention,” she said. “But when we’re looking at the frequency and the intensity of those brain injuries they’re having, it can begin to explain some of this stuff.”

Dr. Karen McAvoy is the co-founder of Get Schooled on Concussions, and, in addition to the link between behavior and brain injury, is often asked about the intersection between mental health and brain injury.

“TACT teacher training is benign, it’s 20 minutes, it can be done at home, and it can potentially prevent long-term issues with depression, anxiety and challenging behavior,” said McAvoy from her office in Colorado. “It’s basic teacher education to mitigate the issues that can happen down the road if we just take care of it now. We can prevent a case from becoming a kid who is suicidal, a kid who has severe anxiety, a kid who is inaccurately diagnosed with ADHD or has behaviors that are out of control because of a brain injury.” ■