ABSTRACT
It is the dynamic neurodevelopmental and psychosocial context of the study, evaluation, and treatment of childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI) that presents the clinician with both challenge and opportunity. The clinician must address several unique issues when assisting the injured child not only to recapture his lost abilities, but also gain the foundation for continued maturation across all areas of life. The child’s brain is an evolving group of systems whose degree of function will allow or prevent the child from acquiring the skills necessary to manage the demands of everyday living with a satisfactory amount of safety and success. The therapeutic emphasis during the child and adolescent’s recovery is not solely to regain pre-injury functional abilities, but to resume, as near as possible, the developmental trajectory that the child was progressing upon.
