The Breakfast and Dressing Conflict Task: Preliminary evidence of its validity to measure online self-awareness after acquired brain injury

Abstract

Primary Objective—Impaired self-awareness following a traumatic brain injury (TBI) can reduce the effectiveness of rehabilitation, resulting in poorer outcomes. However, little is understood about how the multi-dimensional aspects of self-awareness may differentially change with recovery and impact outcome. Thus, we examined four self-awareness variables represented in the Dynamic Comprehensive Model of Awareness: metacognitive awareness, anticipatory awareness, error-monitoring, and self-regulation. Research Design—We evaluated change of the self-awareness measures with recovery from TBI and whether the self-awareness measures predicted community reintegration at follow-up. Methods and Procedures—Participants were 90 individuals with moderate to severe TBI who were tested acutely following injury and 90 age-matched controls. Forty-nine of the TBI participants and 49 controls were re-tested after 6 months. Main Outcome and Results—Results revealed that the TBI group’s error-monitoring performance was significantly poorer than controls at both baseline and follow-up. Regression analyses revealed that the self-awareness variables at follow-up were predictive of community reintegration, with error-monitoring being a unique predictor. Conclusions—Our results highlight the importance of error-monitoring and suggest that interventions targeted at improving error-monitoring may be particularly beneficial. Understanding the multi-dimensional nature of self-awareness will further improve rehabilitation efforts and understanding of the theoretical basis of self-awareness