Deborah L. Wilkerson Early Career Award

Supported by CARF International

Congratulations 2017 AWARD RECIPIENT

In 2017, ACRM honors Emily Nalder, PhD, BOccThy (Hons),  for the significant contributions she has made during her early career work. Dr. Nalder will present the Deborah Wilkerson Award Lecture on 28 October during the ACRM 94th Annual Conference in Atlanta, where she will receive her award.

Proposing a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Resiliency Model to Guide Rehabilitation Research and Practice

AUTHORS: Emily Nalder, Laura Hartman, Anne Hunt, & Gillian King

Existing literature on resilience following TBI looks at individual traits or protective factors in the environment and does not adopt a process-oriented perspective. Key components of the TBI Resiliency Model, include the adversity (i.e., the TBI or other life experiences such as financial strain), personal and environmental protective factors, self-regulatory processes, and resiliency-related outcomes. The protective factors and processes contributing to resiliency may operate differently to other contexts (e.g., resiliency in the workplace), because of the unique aspects of TBI-related adversity, in particular, neurocognitive impairment. Investigating resiliency processes can move the TBI field beyond examining individual traits, and protective factors, to transactional processes that influence adaptation, and participation experiences and opportunities over time.

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