Rehabilitation
At Home Rehabilitation Exercises
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1- Working with Money
LEVEL 1 - Lay 5 to 10 coins on a table (increase the number of coins as attention improves). Ask the student to identify or sort out all quarters, nickels, pennies dimes, etc. and put them in bowls or saucers. Have the student stack coins. Ask the student to alternate, upon command, picking up different sized coins, for example: “Pick up a quarter”, “pick up a penny”, “now, pick up a dime”.
LEVEL 2 - Have the student puts coins into his or her pocket or a small sack and ask the student to reach inside and pull out a quarter or a dime just by feeling it with the fingers. Ask for each denomination of coin.
LEVEL 3 - Engage in making change. Ask the student to tell you which coins would make up 35 cents, 54 cents, etc. Give the student some coins and ask him or her to add the coins and give a total.
LEVEL 4 - Increase the amount of money handled by using both coins and paper bills. Have the student determine how much change should be given if something were being purchased (for example, “If you bought something that costs $9.41 and paid for it with a $10 bill, how much change should you get back?). If the student has difficulty doing the math mentally, provide coins and bills and perform transactions to demonstrate.
LEVEL 5 - Increase the amounts of money for financial transactions in making purchases. Create false bank account balances and have the student figure new balances considering both credits (additions) and debits (subtractions).
LEVEL 6 - Have the student practice creating a monthly budget, including reasonable amounts for food, rent, utilities, clothing, savings, and transportation.
LEVEL 7 - Brief, planned trips to the store can be a very good exercise for the student.
A) To work on reasoning, plan the trip and make a list of things to get at the store. Ask the student to generate the shopping list with some assistance and write down estimated prices for the items, which can then be checked against the actual price. At this level of recovery, the list should be short (4-6 items) and the trip should be brief (no more than 30 minutes in the store, especially the first couple of times). A trip to the grocery store is often a good choice.
B) As progress is evident, add more items to the list allowing for more time and more flexibility. This is a good time to challenge the student by engaging in everyday financial transactions!
C) Encourage the student to plan several stops on a day of errands. Let the student be the initiator of where you go and the best routes to take as well as the best use of sequence and time. (For example, how long will it take to go to the grocery store, the drug store, and the dentist? In what order should we visit these places?)
Taken from Tasks for Home-Based Cognitive Stimulation Program, the Traumatic Brain Injury Model System at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Dept. of P M & R, Birmingham, AL. © 1998-2003 University of Alabama at Birmingham