Many people have difficulties with reading and writing following an acquired traumatic brain injury. Often an individual will find they have gone from being a big reader to not wanting to read at all because it is such a difficult task.The ability to read and write can be affected by a brain injury in several ways:

• Not being able to read or write text.

• Not being able to understand the text.

• Reading and/or writing gives you a headache or makes you feel ill.

• You have difficulty reading/writing more than a few lines without forgetting what you have read/written.
  

• It is hard to focus on an individual line of text.

• Reading and/or writing makes you extremely tired.

Although you might not be able to recover the reading and writing skills that you had prior to your brain injury, it is possible to make reading and writing easier by using some different strategies. For instance, write a note or keywords in the margin with a pencil to refer to if you have difficulty remembering what you have just read, or summarise the important aspects of what you have read into a Dictaphone and then play them back next time you open the book. Just putting a ruler under the line of text they are reading, can help some people. If you have difficulty with writing, get someone else to proof read your work to make sure it is correct and makes sense.

You can also find resources, books and information relating traumatic brain injury at our online Resource Centre.