Grant to Aid Victims of Head Injuries

A grant from the Ahmanson Foundation will enable a cognitive retraining program at Pierce College to continue re-educating people who have had traumatic head injuries, college officials have announced.

The program, which began last fall, was originally funded by Ahmanson for one year, but educators at Pierce were able to gain a second $20,000 grant this month from the Beverly Hills-based foundation.

“We were able to convince them that we really needed one more year of funding before we can become self-funding,” said Norman Crozer, director of the college’s Special Services Office for disabled students.

The college hopes to enroll enough students in the program to attract state funding, instead of relying on private donations, he said.

“As we grow, as more people hear about the program and want to come in, that may give us the wherewithal to go to the state,” Crozer said.

Ahmanson Foundation officials could not be reached for comment, but Crozer said he believed the rarity of the program and its benefits for a “surprisingly large” population of people like his students were some of the reasons the organization continued its support.

Last year the program served 15 students who had suffered head injuries and were unable to function as they had before their accidents.

“Even though you can talk with them and not know they have an injury, you soon realize they have lost the reasoning and memory that they had before,” Crozer said. “We try to retrain them . . . and help them regain as much as possible of their former cognitive skills.”

The classes focus on memory and reasoning skills and students have access to specially programmed computers to reinforce what they learn. Night classes for the fall semester begin Aug. 19, and day classes begin Aug. 20.

For information, call (818) 719-6430.