His weekly talks with Dave continued to improve. Matt’s speech was more animated, incorporating hand gestures and eye contact, and he did better at supplementing lecture slides with relevant content and providing insightful answers to Dave’s questions. There were times, however, when he became flustered, especially if he was asked a question in the middle of his lecture--making it difficult for him to get back on track. We learned that it worked better if questions were held to the end of his presentation. When Matt was “in the groove,” he was on target, and it was a wonderful thing to witness.

In January 2021, Matt underwent a three-hour neuropsychiatric battery of tests. Dr. Broege diagnosed Matt with a combination of acquired dyslexia from the TBI (impairments in language skills, not just a learning or reading disorder), poor language-based memory, and diminished executive (cognitive) function. We asked for strategies to help Matt get his thoughts across when he couldn’t find the right words and how to facilitate a more realistic assessment of how well, or not, he spoke—because he most often over-rated his abilities. One idea was to have Matt critique a conversation or a video recording of himself giving one of his college lectures. Dr. Broege indicated that self-appraisal was a better learning strategy than having someone else provide the same feedback. Matt sometimes poo-pooed this activity as not helpful, yet when he was cooperative, he could identify if he needed to speak more clearly, enunciate his words better, or not talk so fast. Another problem was his inability to recognize when he misspoke or substituted a different word than what was on a lecture slide or in the book he was reading out loud. Dr. Broege gently pointed out that each time Mike and I intervened on his behalf, we inadvertently enabled him to take the easy road out. We needed to avoid giving him clues to remember a word, stop finishing his thoughts, and not let mistakes slide. She also suggested allowing him to gradually and incrementally experience failure as a learning tool. Key players: Jessica, Dave, Kathy, and our family all agreed to apply Dr. Broege’s recommendations in our various interactions.

The support of friends has so blessed us. We contacted a long-time friend and neighbor, Susan Frost, who taught high school French for many years. We asked if she would let Matt interview her about her experience as a teacher. Matt created a list of pertinent questions, plus two suggestions from me, to start the conversation. He reviewed the ideas with his speech therapist, who was “especially impressed with the open-ended questions and how far his writing had come along!” Matt and I role-played ahead of the actual interview. I did not hear about the interview, but Matt and Susan acknowledged that the meeting had gone well. During their virtual meeting, they experienced technical difficulties with the meeting app. The two of them texted back and forth several times and ultimately fixed the problem. Then Matt sent her a Google Meet invitation. She assumed he had done this before--nope. I was in awe of how effectively Matt had communicated via text messages, collaborated with Susan, and came up with a successful solution that enabled them to finish the interview. Matt had two such meetings with Susan.

As we approached the three-year mark, Matt’s PopPop admonished that we needed to do more to help Matt develop a network of friends. At first, with all of the current COVID restrictions, this seemed like a tall task—where would we find people anyway? But he had a good point. God answered our prayers when a few individuals responded to a Facebook inquiry I had posted. Matt had several Zoom meetings with two individuals who also had a history of a TBI. One individual put Matt in contact with four additional people--also with a history of brain injuries. Matt spoke with them over the phone or via Zoom meetings. He related best to survivors who, like him, chose to move forward, not live in the past, and regret what had happened.

In addition to his weekly chats with Phil, Matt periodically spoke with high school friends and a previous dance partner via phone, Zoom, or text. These were great opportunities for them to reminisce about times spent together and catch up on what was new. The dynamics of speaking with peers his age and from different backgrounds was an excellent environment to build relationships and work on his conversational and pragmatic skills--the social applications of communication (eye contact, turn-taking, not interrupting, facial expressions, etc.).

In March 2021, Matt changed things up for his meetings with Dave. He compared four journal papers and summarized them in a PowerPoint presentation. Unlike his familiarity with his old lectures, this challenged him to organize the new content logically and become versed in saying all the technical terms. He practiced repeating complicated, “dense” phrases (real tongue twisters), speaking clearly, loudly, and slowly, adding inflection, and making eye contact, all while discussing this new information. He needed some help pulling it all together, but it was better than Engineering 101—just one more example of upping the ante and expectations.

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