TBI Express: Social communication training for people with TBI and their communication partners

Written by Leanne Togher, Skye McDonald, Robyn Tate, Emma Power, Mark Ylvisaker & Rachael Rietdijk
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TBI Express is a communication training program for people with traumatic brain injury, their families, friends and carers. Sometimes a brain injury affects how a person communicates. They may speak too much or not enough, have trouble staying on topic or not be able to think of what to say. Treatment can improve communication after traumatic brain injury. However, families and friends often don’t know how to help. TBI Express can support families and friends find the best ways to help communication after brain injury.

TBI Express involves ten modules, with each module incorporating a 2.5-hour group session and a 45 minute individual session. The TBI Express kit includes a manual and DVD resource for delivering the program to either a group including both people with TBI and family members / carers, or a group including people with TBI only. Our research found including communication partners in training achieves the best outcomes.

Areas covered include:

• How does TBI affect communication
• Roles in conversation
• Working together well in conversations
• Keeping conversations going
• Effective speaking and listening skills
• Asking positive questions

TBI Express was developed by a research team including Professor Leanne Togher and Professor Robyn Tate from The University of Sydney, Professor Skye McDonald from the University of New South Wales and Associate Professor Emma Power from University of Technology Sydney. Development of TBI Express was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia

TBI Express is an evidence based intervention, with demonstrated efficacy in improving conversations and reducing frequency of communication problems. Feedback from participants who received TBI Express training has been positive, indicating improved relationships and increased feelings of confidence for people with traumatic brain injury.  A modified version of TBI Express called TBIconneCT can be used with individual participants, either in-person or via videoconferencing and will be available shortly.

TBI Express and TBI ConneCT were both designed to be conducted by speech pathologists, although there are instances when the program can be delivered by a psychologist in collaboration with speech pathology. It was developed using a multidisciplinary theoretical framework, but having speech pathology input is preferable when delivering the treatment.

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