Book picks similar to
The Sibling Survival Guide: Indispensible Information for Brothers and Sisters of Adults with Disabilities by Don Meyer, Emily Holl
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humankind-universe
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Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level
Sally E. Shaywitz - 2003
Now a world-renowned expert gives us a substantially updated and augmented edition of her classic work: drawing on an additional fifteen years of cutting-edge research, offering new information on all aspects of dyslexia and reading problems, and providing the tools that parents, teachers, and all dyslexic individuals need. This new edition also offers:- New material on the challenges faced by dyslexic individuals across all ages - Rich information on ongoing advances in digital technology that have dramatically increased dyslexics' ability to help themselves - New chapters on diagnosing dyslexia, choosing schools and colleges for dyslexic students, the co-implications of anxiety, ADHD, and dyslexia, and dyslexia in post-menopausal women - Extensively updated information on helping both dyslexic children and adults become better readers, with a detailed home program to enhance reading - Evidence-based universal screening for dyslexia as early as kindergarten and first grade - why and how - New information on how to identify dyslexia in all age ranges - Exercises to help children strengthen the brain areas that control reading - Ways to raise a child's self-esteem and reveal her strengths - Stories of successful men, women, and young adults who are dyslexic
Humankind: Changing the World One Small Act At a Time
Brad Aronson - 2020
Following her diagnosis, Brad spent most of the next two-and-a-half years either by her side as she received treatment or trying to shield their five-year-old son, Jack, from the worst of Mia’s illness. Amid the stress and despair of waiting for the treatment to work, Brad and Mia were met by an outpouring of kindness from friends, family, and even complete strangers.Inspired by the many demonstrations of "humankindness" that supported their family through Mia's recovery, Brad began writing about the people who rescued his family from that dark time, often with the smallest of gestures. But he didn't stop there. Knowing that simple acts of kindness transform lives across the globe every day, he sought out these stories and shares some of the best ones here.In HumanKind you’ll meet the mentor who changed a child’s life with a single lesson in shoe tying, the six-year-old who launched a global kindness movement, the band of seamstress grandmothers who mend clothes for homeless people, and more.Brad also provides dozens of ways you can make a difference through the simplest words and deeds. You’ll discover how buying someone a meal or sharing a little encouragement at the right time can transform someone’s world, as well as your own.The resource section at the back of the book provides guidance and organizations that will help you channel and amplify your own acts of kindness. Here you'll discover:• How you can fund a surgery to cure someone's blindness with a donation of less than $200.• Organizations through which you can provide a birthday gift for a child who otherwise wouldn't receive one.• Multiple places where you can send letters of encouragement to support hospitalized kids, lonely seniors, refugees, veterans and others.• And over fifty more ways you can change a life.HumanKind will touch your heart. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll be reminded of what really matters.
Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic
Martha N. Beck - 1999
This "rueful, riveting, piercingly funny" (Julia Cameron) book is written by a Harvard graduate--but it tells a story in which hearts trump brains every time. It's a tale about mothering a Down syndrome child that opts for sass over sap, and it's a book of heavenly visions and inexplicable phenomena that's as down-to-earth as anyone could ask for. This small masterpiece is Martha Beck's own story--of leaving behind the life of a stressed-out superachiever, opening herself to things she'd never dared consider, meeting her son for (maybe) the first time...and "unlearn[ing] virtually everything Harvard taught [her] about what is precious and what is garbage.""Beck [is] very funny, particularly about the most serious possible subjects--childbirth, angels and surviving at Harvard." --New York Times Book Review"Immensely appealing...hooked me on the first page and propelled me right through visions and out-of-body experiences I would normally scoff at." --Detroit Free Press"I challenge any reader not to be moved by it." --Newsday"Brilliant." --Minneapolis Star-Tribune
I Raise My Eyes to Say Yes
Ruth Sienkiewicz-Mercer - 1989
She has never spoken a word; never walked, never fed herself, never combed her own hair. Trapped in a body that is functionally useless, her mind works perfectly. This is her story. Absorbing and heartbreaking, it was written with the collaboration of Ruth's friend, Steven Kaplan. Without any self pity Ruth recounts her early childhood with a loving family and some happy years at a rehabilitation center, then virtual incarceration at the notorious Belchertown State School in Massachusetts. After 16 years she was released and now she enjoys a life of purpose and personal triumph. I Raise My Eyes to Say Yes will permanently alter your perception of the severely disabled and it will inspire you with the extraordinary power of love, thought, and the human spirit.
A Life Worth Living
Lorrie Kruse - 2012
is to perfectly map it out and then expect your journey to go as planned. Twenty-six year old home builder, Matthew Huntz, is on his way to making his dreams a reality gorgeous fiance, perfect job, and the house he's always wanted. Until the accident. Paralyzed from the chest down, with his life's GPS offline, Matt is forced to recalculate his path in life.
Through a Different Lens
Riana Everly - 2019
Darcy since he insulted her at a village dance several months before. But an unexpected conversation and a startling turn of phrase suddenly causes her to reassess everything she thought she knew about the infuriating and humourless gentleman. Elizabeth knows something of people who think differently. Her young cousin in London has always been different from his siblings and peers, and Lizzy sees something of this boy’s unusual traits in the stern gentleman from Derbyshire whose presence has plagued her for so long. She approaches him in friendship and the two begin a tentative association. But is Lizzy's new understanding of Mr. Darcy accurate? Or was she right the first time? And will the unwelcome appearance of a nemesis from the past destroy any hopes they might have of happiness? Warning: This variation of Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice depicts our hero as having a neurological difference. If you need your hero to be perfect, this might not be the book for you. But if you like adorable children, annoying birds, and wonderful dogs, and are open to a character who struggles to make his way in a world he does not quite comprehend, with a heroine who can see the man behind his challenges, and who celebrates his strengths while supporting his weaknesses, then read on! You, too, can learn what wonders can be found when we see the familiar through a different lens. This is a full-length novel of about 100,000 words. British spellings are used throughout.
Raising a Rare Girl: A Memoir
Heather Lanier - 2020
She ate organic foods, recited affirmations, and drew up a birth plan for an unmedicated labor in the hopes that she could create a SuperBaby, an ultra-healthy human destined for a high-achieving future.But her daughter Fiona challenged all of Lanier's preconceptions. Born with an ultra-rare syndrome known as Wolf-Hirschhorn, Fiona received a daunting prognosis: she would experience significant developmental delays and might not reach her second birthday. Not only had Lanier failed to produce a SuperBaby, she now fiercely loved a child that the world would sometimes reject. The diagnosis obliterated Lanier's perfectionist tendencies, along with her most closely held beliefs about certainty, vulnerability, God, and love.With tiny bits of mozzarella cheese, a walker rolled to library story time, a talking iPad app, and a whole lot of pop and reggae, mother and daughter spend their days doing whatever it takes to give Fiona nourishment, movement, and language. They also confront society's attitudes toward disability and the often cruel assumptions made about Fiona's worth. Lanier realizes the biggest question is not, Will my daughter walk or talk? but, How can I best love my girl, just as she is? Loving Fiona opens Lanier up to new understandings of what it means to be human, what it takes to be a mother, and above all, the aching joy and wonder that come from embracing the unique life of her rare girl.
The Shape of the Eye: A Memoir
George Estreich - 2011
Estreich writes with a poet's eye and gift of language, weaving this personal journey into the larger history of his family, exploring the deep and often hidden connections between the past and the present. Engaging and unsentimental, The Shape of the Eye taught me a great deal. It is a story I found myself thinking about long after I'd finished the final pages." --Kim Edwards, author of The Memory Keeper's Daughter "The Shape of the Eye personalizes Down syndrome, bringing a condition abstracted in the medical literature into the full dimensionality of one family's life. It's brave of George Estreich to make what has befallen his family so public, trusting of him to let an unknown audience second-guess the family's choices. Because he's opened his home and heart in this memoir, we are privileged to witness in chaotic, heart-wrenching, joyous detail what it means to have and to love a child with Down syndrome." --Marcia Childress, Associate Professor of Medical Education (Medical Humanities), University of Virginia School of Medicine, from her Afterword for the book When Laura Estreich is born, her appearance presents a puzzle: does the shape of her eyes indicate Down syndrome, or the fact that she has a Japanese grandmother? In this powerful memoir, George Estreich, a poet and stay-at-home dad, tells his daughter's story, reflecting on her inheritance --- from the literal legacy of her genes, to the family history that precedes her, to the Victorian physician John Langdon Down's diagnostic error of "Mongolian idiocy." Against this backdrop, Laura takes her place in the Estreich family as a unique child, quirky and real, loved for everything ordinary and extraordinary about her.
A Great and Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A. Bartlett Giamatti
A. Bartlett Giamatti - 1998
He spoke out against player trading. He banned Pete Rose from baseball for gambling. He even asked sports fans to clean up their acts. Bart Giamatti was baseball's Renaissance man and its commissioner. In A GREAT AND GLORIOUS GAME, a collection of spirited, incisive essays, Giamatti reflects on the meaning of the game. Baseball, for him, was a metaphor for life. He artfully argues that baseball is much more than an American "pastime." "Baseball is about going home," he wrote, "and how hard it is to get there and how driven is our need." And in his powerful 1989 decision to ban Pete Rose from baseball, Giamatti states that no individual is superior to the game itself, just as no individual is superior to our democracy. A GREAT AND GLORIOUS GAME is a thoughtful meditation on baseball, character, and values by one of the most eloquent men in the world of sport.
Choosing Naia: A Family's Journey
Mitchell Zuckoff - 2002
A dramatic and carefully detailed account of one family's journey through the maze of genetic counseling, medical technology, and disability rights; destined to become required reading for anyone touched by any of these issues.
A Friend Like Henry: The Touching True Story of an Autistic Boy and His Dog
Nuala Gardner - 2007
Dale was still a baby when his parents realised that something wasn't right. Worried, his mother Nuala took him to see several doctors, before finally hearing the word 'autism' for the first time in a specialist's office. Scared but determined that Dale should live a fulfilling life, Nuala describes her despairat her son's condition, her struggle to prevent Dale being excluded from a 'normal' education and her sense of hopeless isolation. Dale's autism was severe and violent and family life was a daily battleground. But the Gardner's lives were transformed when they welcomed a gorgeous Golden Retriever into the family. The special bond between Dale and his dog Henry helped them to produce the breakthrough in Dale they had long sought. From taking a bath to saying 'I love you', Henry helped introduce Dale to all the normal activities most parents take for granted, and set him on the road to being the charming and well-adjusted young man he is today. This is a heartrending and fascinating account of how one devoted and talented dog helped a little boy conquer his autism.
The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal
Jonathan Mooney - 2007
To learn how others had moved beyond labels, he bought his own short bus and set out cross-country, looking for kids who had dreamed up magical, beautiful ways to overcome the obstacles that separated them from the so-called normal world.The Short Bus is his irreverent and poignant record of that odyssey, meeting thirteen people in thirteen states who taught Mooney that there’s no such thing as normal—and that to really live, every person must find their own special way of keeping on. The Short Bus is a unique gem, propelled by Mooney’s heart, humor, and outrageous rebellions.
The ADHD-Autism Connection: A Step Toward More Accurate Diagnoses and Effective Treatments
Diane M. Kennedy - 2002
Help for frustrated ADHD patients and their families. (As well as those with autism, PDD, Asperger’s syndrome, and other related conditions.) Attention deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD) is one of the most rapidly growing diagnoses of our generation. Often the diagnosis fails to provide real help, leaving patients, doctors, and families at a loss to know what to do next. But for the first time ever, new insights into the overwhelming number of similarities between Autism and ADHD are giving those with ADHD genuine hope. For years, the label of Autism has carried a negative connotation. Parents were afraid to admit the diagnosis and banished the term from discussion. Finally, The ADHD-Autism Connection gives parents, educators, and doctors a reason to embrace autism with a renewed sense of hope and understanding. This book will show how these understandings can minimize the frustration, misdiagnoses, and misunderstandings ADHD sufferers and their families face.
Lila and Hadley
Kody Keplinger - 2020
Having to move to another state to live with her older sister, Beth, even though they haven't spoken in five years. Leaving her friends and her school behind. And going blind.But then Hadley meets Lila.Lila is an abandoned dog who spends her days just quietly lying around at the local dog rescue where Beth works. She doesn't listen to directions or play with the other dogs or show any interest in people. So when Lila comes and sits by Hadley (which is hardly anything, but it's more than she's done with others), Beth thinks maybe Hadley can help Lila. She tells Hadley they'll bring Lila home as a foster dog and Hadley can teach her to follow commands, walk on a leash, and be more of a people dog so she'll be ready to be adopted.Only working with Lila is harder than Hadley thought, and so is the mobility training she starts taking to help with her failing vision. It feels like Lila is too stubborn to train and like learning to use a cane is impossible. But unless Hadley can help Lila, she'll never be adopted into a home. If Hadley could just let go of her anger, she might be able to save Lila... and herself.New York Times bestselling author Kody Keplinger weaves an unforgettable story about discovering true friendship, finding home, and the possibilities of forgiveness.
Painless
S.A. Harazin - 2015
Falling in love. Going to prom. These are all normal things that most teenagers experience. Except for 17-year-old David Hart. His life is anything but normal and more difficult than most. Because of the disease that wracks his body, David is unable to feel pain. He has congenital insensitivity to pain with anhydrosis--or CIPA for short. One of only a handful of people in the world who suffer from CIPA, David can't do the things every teenager does. He might accidentally break a limb and not know it. If he stands too close to a campfire, he could burn his skin and never feel it. He can't tell if he has a fever and his temperature is rising. Abandoned by his parents, David now lives with his elderly grandmother who is dying. When David's legal guardian tells him that he needs to move into an assisted living facility as he cannot live alone, David is determined to prove him wrong. He creates a bucket list, meets a girl with her own wish list, and then sets out to find his parents. All David wants to do is grow old, beat the odds, find love, travel the world, and see something spectacular. And he still wants to find his parents. While he still can.