Specific Disabilities Books

Shame on nitwits who pimp their parents love letters in order to get jus' a lil' more literary credibility. Sometimes the better part of common decency is make the choice not to profit.

This nitwit, in one of the most crass, repulsive revelations ever made on NPR, publically doubted his father's paternity and then "revealed" the paternity test results in front of a mike.

What an intellectually and morally bankrupt idiot; nothing more than a Springer guest with a PhD.

The New York Review of Books called this book "a singularly valuable social document."

Advertised the wrong edition, sent me the wrong one, and were hard to deal with. I dealt with Amazon for a refund.

It came just fine. Possibly a bit more markings than I expected but not a big deal. Thanks.

Well, I ordered this book well before before Christmas and it was in stock when I ordered it. Three weeks went by and I had still not received it, so I called and was told they were all out of them and would not have anymore in until January...way after I needed it. I was not happy that I had to call and inquire about where my book was, especially since no one had the nerve to call me and tell me it was out of stock. Luckily, I got my money refunded.

This is a good book that allows you to brush up on your facts or share with others. I actually purchased this book to share with the paraprofessionals in my building and I think it has been an excellent resource. It doesn't get into complex terms and sticks to the have-to-knows.

While Bliken is a talented writer, his subject matter leaves much to be desired. He attempts to prove a topic that he has not fully researched, nor does he seem inclined to believe that he needs to fully research it. Since Bliken's findings, scientific research has been done, and it has proven Bliken and Facilitated Communication to be well-intended, but terribly misused and virtually, wrong.

Dr. Biklen is arguably the most informed promoter of facilitated communication in North America. However, lurking in his book is evidence that FC is generally useless, except for a small percentage of persons diagnosed with autism -- those with normal or above average intelligence who have a profound communication disability.

Unfortunately, the excessive claims made by this book have helped raise the hopes of countless parents of autistic children, only to have them cruely dashed.

This book documents the author's discovery and subsequent study of facilitated communication, a technique that allows some disabled people to communicate by providing varying degrees of physical, cognitive, and emotional support to use some form of communication device during the communication process. This particular book mainly explores the communication aspect of facilitation, although any action can be facilitated.

During the time period when this book was being researched and written, there were a number of stereotypes about autism and intellectual disability, some of which persist to this day. These stereotypes center on what the person knows and does not know, rather than what the person is and is not capable of showing. Some of these stereotypes, for some people, are shattered by facilitated communication, which allows people to show more depth to their thoughts than their speech and movement skills normally allow them to be capable of, at least to observers with the assumptions most non-autistic observers have.

Biklen explores these stereotypes, but like many who work in facilitated communication, takes disagreement with them to the other extreme. At one point, he suggests that there are *no* cognitive aspects to autism, and that these are all illusions based on a faulty input-output system. While many autistic people, including those of us who speak or type without facilitation, know more and are capable of more than other people assume we know and are capable of, the suggestion that these cognitive theories have no merit is too far-fetched. Autism is not purely motor and sensory; it also involves thought, although to what degree and in what manner depends on the person. The book sometimes makes it sound as if autism is something along the lines of a very complex form of cerebral palsy, and this is not a good analogy for it.

The author questions many of the things that facilitated communicators say, wondering if they are being too pessimistic about things like inclusion based on bad experiences. But he leaves curiously unquestioned the idea that a hatred of being autistic is a natural part of our emotional reality, rather than learned as surely as "inclusion will never work" is learned. The chapter title "I am not autistic on the typewriter" makes me wonder precisely what the person has been taught autism is -- the inability to communicate, some other stereotype? These questions go unanswered, and even unasked. An expression of deep depression is uncritically printed in a section marked "freedom of expression". Something is wrong here, if this is assumed to be what we should feel about ourselves.

There are a number of important stories in here, stories of parents independently discovering facilitated communication, and stories of autistic people working painstakingly for years to develop a communication system of our own, only to have it ignored or even openly ridiculed by professionals. These stories need to be heard.

Descriptions of how facilitated communication is similar to aspects of everyday life for neurologically typical people are important. They demystify the often-misunderstood aspects of facilitation that lead people to believe it is simply a Ouija board effect. One facilitator who has manipulated the hand of an autistic person is ferreted out before he admits it himself -- he is the only facilitator to use hand-over-hand support rather than the touch on the elbow everyone else uses. Techniques to reduce this kind of influence are discussed, although not in as much detail as techniques to validate communication are discussed.

Overall this is an easy-to-read and informative book, reflecting with thoroughness the knowledge of the time period when it came to facilitated communication, with a particular focus on autism. The main drawbacks involve some of the prejudices and preferences that seep through into the work (questioning some things and not others), and the fact that this was the knowledge available during that time period, not the much greater sum of knowledge available today. Much of it, however, stands the test of time.

FC, as it is known, burst on the scene a few decades ago and was hailed as a new tool for the treatment of autism. Money was spent, and parents of severely autistic children becasme vocal proponants of FC as their children were newly discovered to be warm, creative individuals limited by some unknown neuromuscular problem. Hundreds of "facilitators" appeared on the scene to translate for these children and adults.

But there was a dark side, too. Allegations of sexual abuse were made. FC facilitators were being used in custody cases and in suppoort of criminal charges, even though no on ehad ever actually established a scientific criteria for certifying facilitators, or even evaluating what they were doing.

Once science did look at FC, a very different picture appeard, and it looked less like science and a lot like pseduo-psychic phenomena. Facilitators were unable to reveal any information from subjects that they, the facilitators, didn't already know. Different facilitators delivered different stories. Under controlled conditions facilitators couldn't produced- and invoked excuses not unlike those of alleged psychics. The practice was looking less and less clinical and more metaphysical.

Still, FC had, and continues to have, its supporters, mostly parents clinging on to the idea that their severley autistic child is "normal" and those makingh money in the field. But the overwhleming scientific opinion, supported by every controlled study done, is that there's nothing there.

Biklen's book is a wonderful and fascinating account of an attempt to put on one side forty years of accumulated prejudice on the topic of autism and ask what the actual, observable problem that these people have is. For most of the more severe cases, the problem involves communication difficulties. Other researchers had assumed that the communication problems were inseperable from the condition: Biklen asked "If we try and fix the communication problems, what would we find?" Using facilitated communication, a means of steadying a person's pointing to enable them to point to pictures, words or letters, Biklen was able to show that the abilities of these people existed but had been buried. This is not a cure for autism - all you have at the end of it is a person with autism who can communicate rather than a person with autism who can't - but anyone who has an interest in the contested territory of autism must read this book.

This anthology discusses young students that face problems that educators often do not see, thus rendering them "invisible": subjects include battered girls, Appalachians, immigrants, gay youth, among others. This book tries to juggle race, class, and gender matters, but it so heavily focuses on girls that I would almost consider it a women's studies text. I am a bit worried that the contributors are trying to say, "It's not just students of color and disabled students that face oppression at schools!" in ways that may divert much-needed attention to those two groups. Still, I am willing to give these writers the benefit of the doubt.
This book does a good job of balancing theory with quotes from interviewees. It was neither too academically jargonized nor too touchy-feely. I love the art on the cover and how well it represents the problem at hand.
This book effectively illustrates how children who face problems outside the school cannot be optimal learners. For example, if a child is homeless and bounced from place to place, his attendance may suffer. If a girl is beaten at home, she may spend more time hiding her bruises than focusing on studying. I love the holistic perspective here.
Though this book was designed for well-meaning teachers, it also, thankfully, find fault in many teachers. This book gave numerous examples of how teachers reward the children like them and neglect the children not like them. It talks of how teacher are prejudiced against working-class students and students with AIDS patients in their family. I love that it documents how discrimination is meted out in the classroom everyday by the people one would think would be above bigotry.
Published in the late 1990s, the book takes former President Clinton to task for PRWORA and "ending welfare as we know it." I think those of us who deem ourselves progressive should accept constructive critique from our allies. However, in a way, this book felt dated. I highly doubt the Republican-created No Child Left Behind Act has helped these students. I doubt voucher advocates have helped them either. If the left has failed invisible students, can anyone say the right has done a better job?
This book is thoughtful, yet also a quick read. It should be useful for undergraduates and graduate students in education departments.

Invisible Children in the Society and Its Schools is a series of reports on groups of children and young people who are affected by homelessness, violence, pregnancy, AIDS, and other social stigmas. The reports are from various authors and compiled into one reading. The goal of the author is to provide education and advocacy to these groups of people, who have somehow become "invisible" to society. Unfortunately, all the book really does is to try to place the blame for these youth on the perils of capitalism while pushing a failed liberal agenda. I found very few parts either relevant or interesting.

If you're willing to work to slog through it. However, Rourke is guilty of ignoring data that don't fit his view of NVLD/NLD. For example, he states repeatedly that the line between HFA (high-functioning autism) and Asperger's Syndrome is so blurred that the two should not be characterized as different conditions. On the same sort of muddy evidence, however, he claims that NLD is a separate condition for Asperger's Syndrome: despite the near identical "required symptoms" for the two conditions, despite the shared common comorbidities (such as dyscalculia, dysgraphia, depression, problems with visuo-spatial orientation, sensory integration disorder, etc., etc.), and despite extensive research including a study by Klin and Volkmar (much admired researchers in the field of autism and Asperger's) that showed that some 80% of their Asperger's clients at the Yale Child Study Center diagnostically "overlapped" with the NLD criteria proposed by Rourke.

Rourke has proposed guidelines for diagnosing NLD for the next revision of the ICD-10. This, of course, assumes that NLD continues to be classified separately from Asperger's Syndrome, and not as a "milder version".

I, by the way, have two professional diagnoses of Asperger's Syndrome, and another professional diagnosis of NLD with Asperger's Characteristics.

Although this book is considered one of the seminal works describing Non-verbal Learning Disabilities, and the data are quite informative, I find the writing heavy and laborious. It's probably worth slogging through it if you have a professional interest, but, otherwise, look for something more accessible.

I wanted a book for parents and this isn't it. This is a book for researchers and clinicians. If that's your angle, than this is a very comprehensive book and I'd recommend it. If you're a parent, stay away, it's definately "out there".

Disappointingly and inexplicably biased towards methods of understanding and treatment for autism such as psychoanalysis which have been repeatedly shown to be ineffective at best. Definitely not recommended.

I was disappointed with this book. While it is an entertaining biography of Mr. Roberts' experiences as a teacher to the blind, it does not provide much useful information regarding how to cope with blindness. It does demonstrate that blindness can be overcome with proper training so that a blind person can live a "normal" life. Most of the examples sited are quite dated.

At the risk of being impolitic, this book reads like an ADHD's manuscript. I bought this book to help a friend who was using it in class, and remarked that by scanning the chapter headings (a common learning technique), I could divine no idea what the chaper was about. She agreed 100%. The book is so bad that the class finally gave it up. I wish I'd waited one more week and saved myself the price! I gave it 2 stars because the content is (maybe) there, but it needs an editor in the worst way to bring it all together. I mean, for this audience, the text should be a paradigm of understandability, not a trial. How is that experts in learning to read are so poor at writing that, unfortunately, the book will only increase the number of "struggling readers" not decrease them?