Concussion during childhood – even mild trauma – can jeopardise future educational success, according to a study conducted at Tampere University in Finland.
“A mild, single concussion is often considered a relatively harmless event, but our research suggests that it can have long-term effects on learning and cognitive abilities,” says Julius Möttönen, Doctoral researcher and neurology expert.
“This should get more attention in both healthcare and schools.”
The research, published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, compared children and adolescents under 17 years of age who had suffered brain injuries with peers who had sustained ankle or wrist fractures. Over a 20‐year follow-up, those who experienced brain injuries were found to achieve lower levels of education compared to those with limb injuries.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) disrupts the brain function from a sudden external force. While earlier studies have established that pediatric TBI can lead to significant mortality, morbidity, mental impairment, and physical disability, its direct impact on educational attainment has remained unclear.
A new study drew on extensive data from the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare’s register of health and education records spanning 1998 to 2018. Researchers identified 8,487 individuals diagnosed with brain injuries and compared them with 15,552 peers who had experienced ankle or wrist fractures.
The data is quite surprising. In short, children without diagnosed brain injuries were more likely to complete tertiary education than those with pediatric traumatic brain injury (pTBI).
Specifically, the pTBI group was about 20% less likely to achieve any level of tertiary education and about 23% less likely to reach higher levels of tertiary education. Among the pTBI patients, those with specific intracranial injuries fared even worse, showing approximately 22% lower odds of completing any tertiary education compared to pTBI patients who had experienced only a concussion.
Although this research focused solely on individuals with diagnosed brain injuries, many people experience minor head injuries that often go unnoticed. These seemingly insignificant injuries can accumulate over time and contribute to conditions like Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive and degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma.
“Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is an insidious disease that takes decades to emerge,” concussion expert and neuroscientist Professor Alan Pearce from Swinburne University,” told Cosmos. Pearce was not involved in the research.
“While kids might be playing contact sports and getting dozens to hundreds of accumulations of hits over their seasons it’s not necessarily affecting their educational outcomes that quickly, but give it 20, 30 years when they’re in their 40s and 50s we then start to see the manifestation –– just like we would with skin cancer or tobacco.”
Pearce underscores the importance of proper prevention and treatment of head injuries. He adds that future research should consider “the wider environmental aspects of these kids who were concussed –– family life, socialisation, that sort of stuff. It’s important that if a kid is concussed, that they have a good environment to be managed and recover.”
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