Miranda Pederson/Daily News Luke Pearson of Bowling Green, who suffered a major brain injury in a traffic accident, is a student at Western Kentucky University with the help of the Preston Family Foundation Acquired Brain Injury Resource Program.

advertisement

Luke Pearson graduated early from Greenwood High School in 1999 so he could begin his studies at Western Kentucky University.

But about a month later, he woke up from a coma to realize he had to learn almost everything all over again.

Just three days after receiving his diploma, Pearson wrecked his new car on Three Springs Road and suffered a major brain injury.

Determined to get back into school, Pearson pushed himself through therapy - and began education classes just months after the wreck.

But something wasn’t right. He couldn’t focus and he wasn’t getting his usual A’s and B’s. And eventually, he gave up.

Six years later, he decided to do it all over again. This time, he is receiving help from the Preston Family Foundation Acquired Brain Injury Resource Program at WKU.

The program, headed by Richard Dressler, associate professor of communication disorders, is aimed at providing brain injury victims with guidance and the necessary tools to be successful in school.

For Pearson, that means meeting with Kristen Cox, a graduate student from Linton, Ind., once a week to help him plot out his weekly tasks and stay on track with his assignments.

Dressler said the program means a lot of different things to other victims.

“We had a young woman who was a first-year student at Western who was having trouble with essays,” Dressler said. “She knew the answers in her head but once she got the pen to the paper, she lost her train of thought. We worked with the professor to allow her to take her test in a separate room and speak her answers into a recorder and then play it back and transcribe the answers. It demonstrated that she understood the material.”

Dressler said the program has helped football players who have suffered concussions and have difficulty with short-term memory loss.

But most recently, the program received a $10,000 grant from the Ailene Reneau Trust Fund to partner with the Brain Injury Association of Kentucky to provide computer equipment, Internet access and technical support to soldiers with head injuries who want to pursue online classes.

Dressler said several soldiers are returning home with blast injuries that affect their short-term memory and sometimes their ability to organize.

“Our mission is to help any individual who has suffered a brain injury to stay in school and be successful in classes,” Dressler said. “We work with them and the professor on how they can be successful ... we figure out how they can compensate for whatever problems the injury has caused.”

The program is reaching out to the Fort Campbell and Fort Knox areas to help the military take advantage of the opportunities.

Dressler said the program is serving six students, and would like to expand.

“For the students we’ve helped, they’ve been successfully able to continue with school and work,” he said.

Pearson said he has seen a tremendous difference in his grades, as well as his overall confidence, since beginning the program.

“It made me feel like I can do school,” he said. “When I dropped out, I thought, ‘I can’t to this ... .’ It’s made me a lot happier and my family would tell you it’s made a huge difference.”

— For information about the program, visit the Brain Injury Association of Kentucky Web site at www.biak.us or contact Dressler at 745-6280.