Compensatory Strategies: The Basics
Laura Morgan, a Certified Brain Injury Specialist and survivor, empowers individuals through cognitive rehabilitation, offering both restorative and compensatory strategies. With her unique perspective as both patient and practitioner, she guides and inspires through her expertise, presentations, and clinical sessions, providing hope and practical support for brain injury recovery. Contact her at laura@soundmindinsights.com to schedule a session or presentation.
Cognitive rehabilitation can be transformative, offering two powerful approaches: restorative and compensatory.
Restorative Rehabilitation aims to return individuals to their prior cognitive abilities, effectively rebuilding what was lost.
Compensatory Rehabilitation focuses on developing strategies to bypass disabilities, leveraging new tactics to solve problems and navigate daily life.
Compensatory strategies can be divided into two main categories: Internal and External.
Internal Strategies take place within the mind, such as using mnemonics and visualization techniques to enhance memory and problem-solving skills.
External Strategies involve tangible tools to aid memory and organization, like sticky notes, alarms, and calendars to compensate for impairments.
Laura Morgan, a leading expert in compensatory strategies, embodies the spirit of cognitive rehabilitation. Holding a master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology, the Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC-SLP), and being a Certified Brain Injury Specialist, Laura brings a wealth of professional expertise to her work. Perhaps more significantly, she is a brain injury survivor who has fought her way back from a devastating automobile accident, offering a unique perspective as both patient and practitioner.
Laura's journey has equipped her with deep insights into the challenges and triumphs of cognitive rehabilitation. She has addressed national and local groups, sharing her message of hope and resilience with both adults and children. Her advocacy emphasizes that there are indeed paths to recovery, and where obstacles arise, there are often ways around them.
Her message is clear: You are not alone. Laura's mission is to support and guide those navigating the complex journey of brain injury recovery. Whether through inspiring presentations or personalized clinical sessions, Laura is here to help.
To schedule a presentation or a clinical appointment with Laura, please email her at laura@soundmindinsights.com. Let Laura’s expertise and experience light the way to a hopeful future.
From TBI Survivor to TBI Specialist
Laura, a Certified Brain Injury Specialist and TBI survivor, shares her journey of recovery from a traumatic accident that severely impacted her life and career. Her dedication to rehabilitation and experience on "both sides of the table" has driven her to support and educate others through her work, presentations, and volunteer efforts. Despite challenges, she advocates for a growth mindset and compensatory strategies to help others navigate their own recovery paths.
As Christmas 2012 approached, I was busy juggling my clinical fellowship in Speech-Language Pathology, commitments with my church, and hobbies of running and playing several musical instruments. On December 19th, 2012, I was a buckled passenger in a minivan en route to my grandmother’s funeral when we slammed into an 18-wheeler semitruck parked on the shoulder of the interstate. By providential coincidence, two nurses stopped to help and saved my life. Thankfully, everyone survived, though I sustained the most severe injuries, including a Moderate-Severe Diffuse Axonal Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and broken Cervical Spinal Vertebrae 1 and 2.
After ninety-two days inpatient, none of which I remember, I was discharged home in a wheelchair. This phase was filled with grief and uncertainty about ever returning to work as a Speech Pathologist, running, or playing my musical instruments. My short-term memory was severely impacted, leading to a perpetual state of grief as I re-discovered my losses every time I awoke from my frequent naps. My grieving intensified with the return of my cognitive abilities, a dichotomy I referred to as “the double-edged sword of cognitive progress.”
Dedicated to my rehabilitation, I volunteered hundreds of hours in several speech pathology departments. Inspired by my firsthand experience of being on the other side of the speech pathology table, I began giving presentations to medical facilities and graduate speech pathology programs.
However, the accident's injuries were not my only losses. The National Speech Pathology Association's decision not to extend the two-year deadline for completing my clinical fellowship devastated me. This decision meant retaking the national certifying praxis exam and repeating the clinical fellowship, all while navigating life with a newly acquired brain injury.
I joined the community of brain injury survivors, often referred to simply as “Survivors” due to the appalling recovery statistics. I struggled with the cognitive skills of executive function. When explaining executive dysfunction to brain injury survivors and their care partners, I describe it as encompassing all the skills necessary to plan, host, and analyze the success of a large dinner party. These skills include planning, sequencing, selective, sustained, and divided attention, memory, and problem-solving, among other abilities. While I will always experience the effects of my brain injury, I choose to view them with a growth mindset—something I encourage in other survivors. Rather than adopting a fixed mindset, such as “I’ll never be able to do this activity again,” I advocate for discovering compensatory strategies to continue activities despite disabilities.
Because of the journey I have navigated as a Survivor, I am uniquely equipped to support, empathize, and educate. From survivor to specialist, I have the insights to guide you back to a sound mind and hopeful future.