Question
What is the Categorization Program (CP) and why do you feel the CP is so successful with patients? In other words, what are the Active Ingredients of the CP?
Answer
The CP is a hierarchical cognitive rehabilitation program designed to improve categorization abilities in patients with TBI. It consists of 8 hierarchical treatment levels, each level consisting of several steps. The CP addresses the two primary areas of human categorization: 1. Passive object recognition and categorization, and 2. Decision making and new category learning. The CP implements extensive cueing hierarchies, redundancy, and cognitive distance techniques based on strong theoretical constructs. The CP has been proven an effective and efficacious treatment modality based on clinical trials. The "active ingredients" of the program include the following:
- The CP is based on neurobiological principles of cognitive skill acquisition. It begins with concrete tasks and proceeds to incorporating high levels of abstraction.
- The redundancy of stimuli and the cuing levels provide support and facilitate learning. Consequently, patients are able to learn strategies and improve their classification skills.
- In addition, the CP program incorporates episodic memory during all of the levels and facilitates executive functioning abilities such as divergent thinking, problem solving, and decision making.
Check out Dr. Constantinidou's previously recorded course: "Principles of Assessment and Treatment of Memory Disorders in Acquired Brain Injury: An Integrative Approach".
Other related courses include: "Traumatic Brain Injury: An Update on Assessment and Treatment" by Angela Hein Ciccia, Ph.D., CCC-SLP and "Beyond Workbooks: Functional Treatment Strategies for TBI" by Rene' Mills, M.S., CCC-SLP.
Fofi Constantinidou received her doctoral degree in 1995 from the University of Cincinnati in the area of speech-language pathology with concentration in clinical cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology. She joined the faculty in the department of Speech Pathology and Audiology at Miami University in 1995 as assistant professor; she was promoted to associate professor in 2001 and to full professor in 2007. In 1998 she created the NeuroCognitive Disorders Laboratory at Miami University which she directed until August 2008. Constantinidou joined the Department of Psychology at the University of Cyprus in 2006 and in 2008 she developed the Neurocognitive research laboratory. She is currently the ASHA chair of the Joint Committee on Interprofessional Relations between ASHA and Division 40 (Clinical Neuropsychology) of the American Psychological Association (APA).
