Kathy developed the book out of frustration following her own brain injury in September 1990. After spending six weeks in the hospital, Kathy received five months of TBI-specific rehabilitation in a residential facility, followed by in months of outpatient treatment. During this time she failed at three part-time, entry-level jobs and began to develop the BRAIN BOOK^® out of her own personal need for a more specialized organizational and memory tool. Kathy secured employment in May 1992 and shortly thereafter realized other people with brain injury experienced similar difficulties. By sharing he original book with others in her support groups, she learned that others with brain injury benefited from the same strategies she had developed for herself.

In 1993, Kathy began working as a part-time skills trainer and job coach with the Turning Point Division of Southern Oregon Goodwill Industries. She also started giving skill building workshops and presentations using the book. The response was overwhelming! The success of these programs led to joining with master teacher Beverly Naylor in January of 1995 to form RE-COGNITION and make the book’s skills and strategies more widely available.

Kathy has a personal commitment to helping others with brain injury regain autonomy by learning to use compensatory skills. In recognition of this commitment, Kathy was awarded 1996 “Clinician of the Year” by the Brain Injury Association of Oregon. Additionally, one state is finalizing plans to use the BRAIN BOOK^® System in a vocational rehabilitation pilot program.

Some people call the book a “prosthetic memory device.” Many people who use the book call it their “paper brain.” It doesn’t matter what you call it; it helps restore function by replicating cognitive functions on paper.

After years of development, Kathy now teaches the BRAIN BOOK^® System’s program to other people with brain injury. The training is available in Medford, Oregon, where adult foster care or transitional living arrangements can be made in the community. Kathy also travels all over the country to give seminars to professionals and family members so they can teach the program to people in their communities who have had brain injuries.

With training, the person with brain injury can learn where to find, retrieve and manipulate the same information he or she used to be able to store and manipulate without assistance. Topics include getting and staying oriented, managing personal medical and emergency information, tracking information about significant people, managing personal routines, personal activity schedules, outside appointments, special projects, writing effective memory notes, effectively retrieving and manipulating memory notes, and effective communication with others and managing troubling feelings.

Principle “B” concerns life management. The focus is on skill integration to successfully get out of the house and back into the world. Students are given introductory worksheets and instructional tapes to build a foundation of skills. All tasks for primary life activities are broken down into essential parts. Transferred into book form, many people with memory and organizational impairments can immediately see and follow the steps to regain function. To see an example of how cognitive functions are replicated on paper, prospective users are encouraged to review and/or order sample pages. Topics included are: managing your money, managing shopping trips, managing errands and writing and following directions.

Principle “C” allows time for students to learn new skills and focuses on successfully returning to work or other meaningful activity. There is no “quick fix” to the complex difficulties people with brain injury face in their daily lives. It takes time to learn how to write memory notes and learn strategies for quickly retrieving the notes and effectively using them. It takes time to learn how to organize one’s thoughts in preparation for a meeting, interview, appointment or shopping trip. It takes time to learn to schedule appointments, travel time and personal “appointments with yourself.” It takes time to learn strategies for managing troubling feelings. The raining helps a person replicate these and other cognitive functions on paper. All this new learning takes time!

In the “scheme of things,” these time frames are a drop in the bucket compared to the number of ears in front of the person. In the world of traditional rehabilitation and insurance funding, such time frames may be unreasonable or unaffordable. That is why the BRAIN BOOK^® System’s program is designed to be affordable and accessible. It can be made available through state divisions of Vocational Rehabilitation, for example.

After the basics are mastered, follow-through can often be completed independently at home. The last phase includes getting back to work, staying oriented at work, tracking information about people at work, establishing, managing and altering work routines, managing one’s work schedule, writing effective memory notes at work, effectively retrieving and using work-related memory notes, filing and paper management, managing special projects and communication and problem solving.