Not only did I forget a lot of things after my anoxic brain injury, I quickly discovered that learning new things after brain injury requires a planned strategy and dedicated effort. You see, after my anoxic brain injury where lack of oxygen had “killed” the brain cells that provide short-term memory, I had to have a strategy for retaining important information. Larry and I laid out a lot of these strategies in Brain Injury Survivor’s Guide.
But, just because it’s more difficult to get that information into my long term memory, I can’t give up on learning new things and recalling important older information. That said; let me tell you about my newest challenge – learning French!
Larry and I love to go to the island of Saint Martin and the French side is our favorite. If you don’t know much about this island, it is owned by two different countries – France and The Netherlands (Dutch). Just for fun and because the French language is go beautiful, we always learned a few words before we went to the island so we could take in a little more of the culture there.
Well, a couple of days ago UPS delivered us a package containing Rosetta Stone – French. I knew I would have some additional challenges, but am so excited about learning this language. Having delved into it for a couple of days now, I found my biggest challenge is going to be speaking because I have a problem recalling most of the words. I can recognize them, pronounce them and even write them while understanding what they mean, but to come up with what to say out of the blue is where I’m having the most difficulty.
Of course, since I am very familiar with anoxic brain injury, its causes and resulting challenges, I can understand why that part is more difficult for me. However, I am not completely discouraged since I know it may take me a little longer, but I WILL get there.
This is true with any learning after brain injury. It is necessary to know the problem, access one or more strategies and never give up.
But, just because it’s more difficult to get that information into my long term memory, I can’t give up on learning new things and recalling important older information. That said; let me tell you about my newest challenge – learning French!
Larry and I love to go to the island of Saint Martin and the French side is our favorite. If you don’t know much about this island, it is owned by two different countries – France and The Netherlands (Dutch). Just for fun and because the French language is go beautiful, we always learned a few words before we went to the island so we could take in a little more of the culture there.
Well, a couple of days ago UPS delivered us a package containing Rosetta Stone – French. I knew I would have some additional challenges, but am so excited about learning this language. Having delved into it for a couple of days now, I found my biggest challenge is going to be speaking because I have a problem recalling most of the words. I can recognize them, pronounce them and even write them while understanding what they mean, but to come up with what to say out of the blue is where I’m having the most difficulty.
Of course, since I am very familiar with anoxic brain injury, its causes and resulting challenges, I can understand why that part is more difficult for me. However, I am not completely discouraged since I know it may take me a little longer, but I WILL get there.
This is true with any learning after brain injury. It is necessary to know the problem, access one or more strategies and never give up.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment