An acquired brain injury is an injury to the brain caused by internal or external factors. Internal factors may include a medical condition or illness and external factors may include trauma, toxins, or surgery.

Brain injuries can impact a person’s speech, language, cognition, and social abilities. They may develop difficulties with articulation or voicing which can be diagnosed as apraxia or dysarthria. Difficulties with word finding or language organization are common and are referred to as aphasia. Frequently, changes to cognitive components of communication (including attention, memory, reasoning, and executive functioning) may have a large functional impact on day to day activities and new learning.

When children sustain brain injuries, some deficits may be noted at time of injury, while others may not be noted until later in their development as they "grow into" their areas of deficit. Children often recover many previously acquired skills with both time and therapy. It is oftentimes more difficult for these children to gain the developmental skills they were working on acquiring at the time of injury as well as the later developing skills which build upon these without therapeutic support.

Because we know timely intervention is key for brain injury recovery, assessments for rehabilitative services are completed within 72 hours of contact whenever possible.