Cognitive Behavioral Driver's Inventory

Abstract

One of the most difficult and vexing decisions facing the Rehabilitation Team involves the judgment regarding the brain injured individual's capacity to safety operate a motor vehicle (see Mittlemann and Greenfield, 1977). The cognitive impairments, emotional disturbances, and personality changes which are sometimes permanent sequelae to brain injury frequently outweigh any physical limitations which might impact upon the driving decision. For instance, Shore, Gurgold, and Robbins (I 980) found that 90% of a physically impaired group diagnosed as spinal cord injury, congenital disability, or muscular dystrophy, were relicensed following training in a Handicapped Driver's Education Program. Yet, only 50% of the neurologically impaired patients carrying diagnoses of cerebral vascular accident (CVA), cerebral palsy, or closed head injury, achieved relicensing after training. Attentional deficits, slowed reaction time,