Undiagnosed head trauma may be the underlying cause of many of the learning disabilities and other mental illnesses that are characterized by thinking problems (what professionals often refer to as “cognitive deficits”). So says a new study that the Wall Street Journal reported on today.
The researchers found that once such “hidden” brain injuries have been properly identified, they can often be readily treated by therapy that helps people with such cognitive deficits. The therapy can include many cognitive behavioral types of interventions, including “attention exercises, reading articles to explain the main idea, interpreting charts and graphs, taking classes on how to take apart a problem and reduce it to smaller steps, writing mock “advice columns” on how to handle life issues,” according to the WSJ article.