Disabled Books

This book rambled, stumbled over itself, and was filled with grammatical errors. It was hard to determine where the authors were trying to go, and it seemed that once they got there, they offered little, if any, information that was actually useful. I learned perhaps two new things from this book, and they really aren't things that will help me to help my Aspergian son.

If you have a child with ADHD, an Autism spectrum disorder/Pervasive Development Disorder, or sensory integrative issues then this book will be an excellent read!! I love that it has entire chapters/sections devoted to the interaction between a specific disorder/diagnosis/cluster, and sensory response/reactions...the book is well-written, is readily understandable to lay-persons, yet it is as useful to therapists as many other books on the market...my son's therapist copied almost the entire book when she borrowed it from me!!!
In a nutshell, this book gives you certain behaviors that may manifest, gives ideas on how to resolve...yet is never preachy...love this book

This book has important wisdom for parents and teachers. The authors write very compassionately and very professionally about the process of helping kids with a number of disorders that can interfere with learning. They are very helpful, and always respectful of the children whose learning patterns they are describing. This is a great book!! LO in New York

An easy to read comprehensive look at sensory dysfunction covering symptoms, definitions, diagnosis as well as assessments, curriculum strategies and modifications in the environment. A must have resource for parents, caregivers, educators and therapists.

Authors Emmons and Anderson are both special education teachers, as well as moms of children with sensory integration difficulties, and it shows. Their insightful book offers excellent strategies for helping children with SI dysfunction, especially when it occurs concurrently with autism, Asperger's, ADHD or bi-polar disorder.

Because so many 'college student with disability' books do a HORRIBLE job with their thesis, this book is in an important class by itself.

Addressing the prospective college student themselves, it merely requires them (if not already doing so) to assume proactive self responsibility) for accademic and personal success from the time of research to after-college graduation. Our parents legally cannot advocate in the college environment irrespective of how much they love us. So, people with disabilities need to do it themselves in the college environment!

Plus, it leaves that college environment itself wide open for application. It is correctly acknowledged that people with disabilities are NOT limited to considering only a handful of campuses. Like other prospective college students, we should consider a wide variety of factors when examining and then applying to post-secondary institutions. Certainly, we should consider if they offer an academic degree program which we are interested in/might be interested in--and if it is properly accredited so we successfully get a job with that hard-earned college degree. And finding out if you like the personality of the campus accommodations office--which we have to contact ourselves for the accomodations to commence--probably can't hurt either.

On the chapter explaining the rights of college students with disabilities. I only wish it had started out explaining the VERY large difference between a k-12 special education program and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The differences which were brought up (reasonable accommodation and the college institution not having to 'lower' program speed/standards) honestly might not be clear for some readers. Myself and other people with disabilities who were well-versed in advocacy had to explain such a difference to some prospective new campus enrollees who had assumed that everything was completely the same as their high school experiences. But the author should have already included such important legal information in the book, seeing as how it was well within her own advocacy thesis area.

Still, this book remains an invaluable resource for the special education student who is capable of performing in college--but is not finding transition advice in their immediate community.

This book was very helpful. It provided a lot of in depth information. It was so informative I shared it with others who could benefit from this information. Overall a very good purchase.

I bought this book for my daughter who has exceeded her elementary teachers expectations. She is now ready to go to college. So I looked for a book that could Guide her thru college thus aiding her to self advocate on her behalf. Knowing she would not read it, I read it. My goal is to point her to this book as she needs it. I also liked the carry over to job hunting, writing resumes', to the first day on the job. All the while providing advise for people with learning disabilities. I recommend this book to parents and their children. We will keep it.

This is for those that are dealing with learning disabilites or have trouble with thinking, inability to read, communicate, who're able to make better grades, attend colleges, take tests and/or quizzes, shoot!!!...this book tells it all. I recommend LIFE IS NOT A FAIRY TALE by American Idol winner and singer Fantasia.

I was reading live 5 or so chapters to this book and wasn't deeply depressed about it. So IMO it seems it helps me. I can't go mad. This is right s**t here.

Also in the book, it talks about the kinds of careers or jobs u wanna pursue or have an interest to, talks the type'a skills, type'a research u need in order to get in. I recommend this to all job-seekers, school/college graduates and dropouts, who are in school or just finished school, so forth.

This is the book u need if u wanna learn and acheive. I say AMEN to that.

For any parent or professional seeking a book which will lead to guidance for specialized medical care, I do not recommend this book. The first chapters are very general and could apply to any child, with autism or not. Many of the medical suggestions are common sense parenting. In the chapter on "Safety" and in several others, it seems to be assumed that the autistic child is mobile. No mention is made of helmets or special equipment.

The mentions of referrals to specialists such as genetics, and opthamology do not give any concrete guidance as to what specific tests or outcomes are to be expected or conducted and I saw no mention that a Pediatric opthamologist might be preferred over a general one. I want to know what an opthamologist should be doing...what parts of the eyes or neural processing of sight can be tested and how and what will it mean. I want to know what gene sequences should be tested for assurance that the problem is autism and not genetic.

I found the section on neuropsychological/educational/developmental testing informative, but we are not at that stage yet.

What I did find especially distressing in a text/reader was litle mention of the importance of accepting and expecting delayed response times to stimuli. Current research in education suggests allowing a 5 second interval between command or stimuli and response because of delayed neural processing by autistic and PDD students. I have adapted my expectations with my nephew and find that he is actually responding just not a normal speed.

I found the question answer format of chapter review insulting. Summaries would have been better. Finally, even though the authors are from the U.S. much of the book reads as though it is for a British audience. The use of "she" to refer to the autistic child is perplexing as males are more likely to be affected than females.

I expected more due to the five star ratings, but was sorry for the purchase.

This book provides a great deal of practical information for the parent of a child with autism. Routine health care visits and dental appointments and such can be incredibly stressful for children with autism and their parents, and the book provides practical advice on these issues. Another helpful chapter was that on using medication or other kinds of non medical treatments that you can find on the internet. There's so much information out there that it helps to have two authoritative voices helping one to sort these things through.

I am a physician and have looked for years for a book that would talk about medical care for children with autism and have now found it. This book is going to be a great resource for parents and teachers; it offers some good information to health care providers as well. It is balanced. Offers good coverage of a range of issues. The section on insurance is great - I don't know why the authors didn't put it early on in the book (they put it as an appendix)! The chapter on alternative treatments is very well done. Many great tips for managing office visits, the ER, hospitals, etc. Great reading list -Worth every penny!

Fred Volkmar is a leading medical authority on autism and director of the Developmental Disabilities Clinic and Research Program at the Yale University Child Study Center. Lisa Wiesner is a pediatrician with a special focus on pediatric autism. Dr. Volkmar and Dr. Wiesner draw upon their considerable expertise and experience in Healthcare For Children On The Autism Spectrum: A Guide To Medical, Nutritional, And Behavior Issues to provide up to date and fully accessible information for parents and care-takers on children with autism ranging from birth through adolescence. The subject areas comprehensively range from growth and nutrition, seizures, dental care, sensory issues, adolescent issues, developmental deterioration, and ASD diagnosis, to sleep, complementary and alternative treatments, safety issues, medications and behavior, doctor and hospital visits, raising a healthy child, and providing parents with an overview of autism and related conditions. Healthcare For Children On The Autism Spectrum is vitally important and urgently recommended reading for any parent or caretaker charged with the responsibilities arising from children with any degree of autistic behavior.

I am a committed Amazon shopper, this is, however, the first review I have submitted. I have only read a few pages of this book via the Amazon reader. I was searching for resources to help me help my 8 year old learning disabled son and his teacher. On page 202 the authors virtually dismiss my son's problems based on research from 1966 (the year I was born) stating that a bit of firmness would correct his ADHD / Dysgraphic behavior.

As a veteran high school teacher I agree that kind, firmness is vital in the classroom, but much more is needed to stop kids who process information differently from dropping out of school. We need to help them learn not just firmly (if "kindly") insist that they comply with a system that is frequently just wasting their time.

This book should be a requirement for every teachers ed program. It talks to evry discipline problem that may be encountered, from the ordinary to the severe. It is more applicable to the elementary level than to the secondary level. As a school counselor, I gave it to my daughter as she began her teaching career.

Dr. Dreikurs provides insightful and necessary information for teachers and parents today. It was enlightening to learn the 4 Adlerian Goals of Misbehavior (Need for: Attention, Power, Revenge, Discouragement) that children exhibit and how to deal with those behaviors to help children in a respectful and successful manner. There are many ideas such as the approach to discuss behaviors as a group in the classroom that lead children to understand their own behaviors as well as their friends' and how to help each other. Of great interest is also the approach of family meetings, and the examples, role play and dialogues are fantastic scenarios that help us learn HOW to follow the advice provided in the book. I was saddened to learn how I may have caused the competitive behavior of my own child, though happy to learn how to reverse what has been done. Understanding why our generation is transitioning in the way we parent as opposed to our parents and grandparents is provided...we are moving from autocratic to democratic methods. And after reading the chapter regarding this transition, it is logical why we have a struggle. Many of us are looking for help to move towards a more child-friendly approach, which is EXACTLY what "Maintaing Sanity in the Classroom" provides. All children would be much better off if all teachers had extensive training in the areas addressed by this excellent book.

I usually do not write reviews, but I had to say that I disagree with the previous reviewer's belief that this book was more applicable to elementary-school teachers. I am a middle school and high school teacher and believe that the techniques used in this book are just as helpful for upper-level teachers. There are even two chapters on particular concerns with adolescents. Those teachers who use the Responsive Classroom system of discipline will find that this book provides additional techniques to counsel children and aid them to become responsible citizens.

I found this book has useful ideas that are not difficult to implement. It provides lists and suggestions for addressing issues that many arise in the classroom. It is easy to forget that many ASD children need to be directly taught things that the average child would intuit. I think this would be particularly helpful when an ASD child is placed in an inclusion setting so the teacher could prepare for the child's needs. With any child you have to look at his or her unique needs, but this book has some very useful concrete suggestions on how to help an ASD child succeed.

I love this resourse it had a lot of great ideas. My suggestion would be to read it before you give it to you educators and pick and choose what you think might work for you child. They were a lot of ideas using many different tackics and some will work better for some children then others. I did love the ideas and suggestions.

This book is a great starting point and a good strategy reminder for any teacher, but especially for teachers that don't not have any experience teaching students with Asperger syndrome or High-Functioning autism. (Although it could be applied to any student in many different settings and at any age!). The content of the book in divided in 10 useful simple strategies. Each strategy is presented with an example and the reasons why it is important to use it. I would also recommended it to parents that need to give an orientation to the teachers of their sons or daughters.

This is a very user friendly book for busy teachers and other school staff who advocate for children with Asperger Syndrome and related disabilities of all ages. The book outlines ten areas that must be addressed and provides excellent information and strategies for each area. This book could be used to guide training for school staff working with students with AS/HFA.

As a yoga teacher for Seniors, I found this book very helpful since many of my students are only able to do exercises in a chair. I had used many of the exercises already and my students love them. I think its very important to add resistance training to every exercise program, especially our seniors. I purchased flexbands and my seniors love using them. This is a great reference book for anyone who teaches exercises for rehab or seniors.

A friend, from eBay no less, first told me about Bob Andersen and his books on stretching and exercise. Since that time I have acquired four of his texts and a video. Why? Because his well written books and the superb video have given me my active life back to me. I would not consider starting my day without doing a 30 minute regimen of stretching exercises that he refers to as the essential daily stretches. I'm 61 and lead a moderately active life. But a couple of years ago I noticed I was having more pains in my feet, joints and back than normal. My range of motion was decreasing and before I knew it, normal motion of bending and stooping or getting in and out of a car was becoming difficult for me. Along came the friend's recommendation on Bob Andersen and I was very skeptical. Before the week was out, the pains were gone. I was no longer limping as I walked from my car to my job, I could go up and downstairs as I had always done, not one step for two feet at a time. The rotation in my lower back and torso has been greatly extended so that I'm looking forward to playing golf once more. His advice is very simple, concise and easy to understand. He has made my life much more enjoyable and I'm grateful for these books and the video. I can't recommend him enough for anyone of any age who wants to stay fit or is interested in stretching and its benefits which are many.

As a wheelchair user, I use my muscles differently than the able bodied person so an exercise book geared for the able bodied is usually not useful to me. I found this book to be very helpful, with the use of theraband exercise aids (those long, stretchy neon colored things you've all seen) I can work out specific muscle groups and areas of my body as I need. A large number of the exercises can be done in a seated position. The line drawings are clear and very helpful. This would be a good book for anyone, able bodied or not who wants to ease into fitness following an injury, surgery, or just years of couch potato life. The spiral binding made it easy to keep the book open in front of my while doing the stretches. This is a very practical consideration usually overlooked by writers of exercise manuals.

This very small spiral bound book lies flat while you are trying to use it. The illustrations are clear and the instructions for the various stretches are clear as well. The exercises look accessible to anyone who can sit up in a chair, but as with any exercise book you need to be careful.

For the lay person, this is an interesting view point to read and perhaps get a sense of the frustration that is felt by my people with learning disabilities. However, as some who is dyslexic and also a teacher, there are significant things missing from McCabe's perspective. While I certainly understand his anger at educational "experts" he seems to operate under the assumption that he is the only one who has ever experienced his circumstances or has ever thought of the things he's promoting, which is an incorrect portrayl of the history of LD education. I was entertained at times, offended at others. Overall, there are more relavent books out there.

Read the 12 sample pages at Amazon.com. A distinguished educator speaks of his own dyslexia and his gratitude for a loving family, high expectations, and no official disability label. The author was in elementary and high school before they had the label of dyslexic. There were plenty of kids who needed help and got help. Therapy was just active play. Early educational intervention was just playing school. Teachers taught learning (memory) strategies to all students in k-12. He offers many practical ideas for improving literacy.

Not only is this book a description of Don McCabe's early years, he also has some fascinating information about the "word families" approach to spelling and reading, made new through his own well-developed sequential spelling strategies!
I can see that the mastery of the language is in learning the patterns of spelling. The sequencing of the words is based on research and the building of English words from the root word to an expanded form.
I really liked the fact that students correct their own papers. Immediate feedback is empowering. A student's confidence is much more significant when they can spell words that they have never seen before without studying!
I am anxious to find out more about his website [...] and check out his text books utilizing the sequential spelling techniques.

Don McCabe writes a compelling autobiography to illustrate what it is like to grow up dyslexic. He was born in 1932 and this was well before "dyslexia" was a term, let alone a diagnosis. He was just treated as a boy who couldn't sit still. He credits his older sister and wonderful teachers who worked intensively with him to help him learn to read and eventually to become a respected scholar. McCabe has dedicated the last thirty years to working on literacy. This book is a quick, fun read that shows a good dose of humor helps in discussing serious topics such as dyslexia. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed as dyslexic, don't wring your hands in despair - buy this book and learn from someone who knows first hand about what it means to be a dyslexic.

THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ FOR KIDS,KIDS AT AT HEART,PARENTS TEACHERS,EDUCATORS(ETC) IT'S ESPECIALLY A GIFT TO THOSE LD/ADD/ADHD/DYSLEXIC INDIVIDUALS WHO ENJOY 12STEP (IE ACOA) BOOKS!! THE DRAWINGS ARE TERRIFIC,THE STORIES TOUCHING,TEAR PROVOKING AND ARE FUNNY & EMOTION FILLED!! I WOULD BE DELIGHTED TO SPEAK TO ANYONE WITH QUESTIONS AND/OR COMMENTS AS I HAVE BEEN DR L'S VERY SUCCESSFUL ADULT PATIENT SINCE 9/84-PRESENT(AND AM VERY SIMILAR TO THE "ANNA" CHARACTER IN THE BOOK!)THE BOOK ALSO IS WONDERFUL AS IS ITS SEQUEL,TURNING AROUND THE UPSIDE DOWN KIDS, IN THAT IT ALSO INCLUDES PRAISE FOR THE IRLEN COLORED TINTED FILTER EYEGLASSES IN ADDITION TO THE INNER EAR MEDICATIONS. MARSHA LAMPERT MBA ,WANTAGH NY

This book made a tremendous break through in my son's ability to see his dyslexia as a medical problem. He always thought of himself dumb and stupid. His eyes filled with tears as he read about himself through the football players words. He identfied so well with the dyslexic character that since we read the book, he has never once referred to himself as dumb or stupid again. This book has given my son so much more than I could ever tell him. Every dyslexic child should read this book and hopefully they to will gain what a parent can't tell a child.

I purchased this book to help my 7 year old son understand his dyslexia. Although the book was written in a way that children would readily understand the text, I disagree that it is for children between the ages of 4 - 8. I believe children between the ages of 9 - 13 would benefit most from it. Finally, if the child relates to one of the kids described in the book, I believe that it would be frustrating to not find any helpful strategies at the end. Maybe they are in the next book?

I have three children with dyslexia and finding a book that helps them understand their problem without the scientific jargon is hard. This is an enjoyable read and helped me understand what the kids are going through. It also shows that an understanding teacher with a heart of gold can truly make a difference to their lives. More teachers should be taking the time to read books like these and they should be more understanding of the "New" children entering their classrooms.

Congratulations Dr Levinson for a wonderful book it helped me and my children and I recommend this book to all parents that have dyslexic children.

Have teenager with ASD/Asberger syndrome, this book is just what we needed!

In response to my explanation of the idiom "get your skates on"

"There's some strange things those normal people make up"

Absolutely, so that gives you the heads up, there's no beating about the bush here, it's all from the horses' mouth.... (am I gonna get in hot water for this), let me just chew the cud for a while.

This book was perfect for my 9 yo daughter. She has NLD and is often confused by language, facial expression, or hidden meanings. We had a lot of fun guessing the answers (she got them wrong every time!) and then reading the correct meaning. Within an hour she had picked a lyric out of a song and understood it for the first time ("coming out of my shell"). We are thrilled with this book!

For people with autism/Asperger's, this book is the book to have in understanding colloquialisms, idioms and metaphors. Instead of relying on neurotypical (NT) counterparts to interpret and translate these phrases, just keep this book handy. It's the ideal tool to have when learning the language of the NT world.

This book helps a child with Aspergers unravel the mysteries of colloquial meatphors -- that is the great idea. However, it was written in the United Kingdom, which means that sometimes the explanations are confusing also (what is a queue, Mom???)-- that takes away from its effectiveness and makes for frustration. There are also a couple of publishing goofs -- wrong explanation on the page -- no excuse for that. I actually whited them out and moved the words over. Like I said -- great idea -- upbeat and useful -- but it should be noted that it is not US English.

My aunt gave me this book to read and it is amazing! I knew some of the facts (like that FDR suffered from polio and Helen Keller was blind and deaf) but this book had more than just the regular facts. It had more of the STORIES about who these people were and how they got past their problems.

Bruce Jenner and Jim Stovall - Both of these men overcame disabilities to achieve great things. Things most people wouldn¹t have attempted and things others would have never assumed they would achieve. While I do not have a disability, this book has motivated me that no matter what goals I set for myself, with hard work and determination I can achieve great things too.

I found Amazing Achievers to be a book everyone should read. When I started reading it, I couldn¹t put it down. I read the entire book the night I received it. I enjoyed reading about the characters in the book and how they overcame their disabilities.