Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder


Gabor Maté - 1999
    With wisdom gained through years of medical practice and research, Scattered Minds is a must-read for parents – and for anyone interested how experiences in infancy shape the biology and psychology of the human brain.Scattered Minds:- Demonstrates that ADD is not an inherited illness, but a reversible impairment and developmental delay- Explains that in ADD, circuits in the brain whose job is emotional self-regulation and attention control fail to develop in infancy – and why- Shows how ‘distractibility’ is the psychological product of life experience- Allows parents to understand what makes their ADD children tick, and adults with ADD to gain insights into their emotions and behaviours- Expresses optimism about neurological development even in adulthood- Presents a programme of how to promote this development in both children and adults

Aspertools: The Practical Guide for Understanding and Embracing Asperger's, Autism Spectrum Disorders, and Neurodiversity


Harold Reitman - 2015
    Harold Reitman, labels are a lousy way to describe a unique human being, whether it's Asperger's, high functioning autism, ADHD, dyslexia, Tourette's or even the so-called neurotypical brain itself. One size does not fit all. Everyone's brain is different.Helping others 'get it' when it comes to dealing with those with so-called learning disabilities is why Reitman has written this book. It's also why he wrote and produced The Square Root of 2, a movie about a college student who encounters—and fights—her school's unjust system. The film was inspired by the real events faced by his daughter and contributing author, Rebecca, when she went to college; her seizure disorder and—at the time—undiagnosed Asperger syndrome posed unique challenges not faced by most students.After reviewing the scientific community's research, conducted over the last nearly 40 years, Dr. Reitman believes that it's time to not just accept neurodiversity, but to embrace it, and this book will help people do just that. It is the first book to offer simple tools, action plans and resources to help understand and deal with anyone whose brain is a bit different. The astonishing rate of autism births alone (1 in 68) means that society will have to adapt to neurodiversity, just as it has had to adapt to other cultural and racial differences. Our educational system, our workplaces, and society at large will no longer be one size fits all—each individual will have the opportunity to maximize their potential—and we will be the better for it. Dr. Harold "Hackie" Reitman is an orthopedic surgeon, a former professional and Golden Gloves champion heavyweight boxer, philanthropist, and a movie producer. His recent release, The Square Root of 2, is a fictionalized adaptation of his daughter Rebecca's challenges at college (TheSquareRootOf2.com).

Babies with Down Syndrome: A New Parents' Guide


Susan Skallerup - 2008
    Covering the best practices for raising and caring for children with Down syndrome through age five, this book is invaluable to new parents who have welcomed a baby with Down syndrome into their lives. This new edition incorporates the latest scientific, medical, educational research, and practical information available, as well as parents' suggestions and feedback. Existing chapters have been revised, some completely rewritten by new authors, and in keeping with its parent-friendly reputation, most of the book's contributors are parents of children with Down syndrome Chapters cover: - What Is Down Syndrome?: A primer on the causes, characteristics, and diagnosis, including the latest information on genetics and prenatal testing;- Adjusting to Your Baby: Advice from an experienced mother on coping with common emotions and announcing the news to friends and family;- Medical Concerns & Treatments: An overview of possible health issues including celiac disease, sleep apnea, diabetes, reflux, and skin problems, with an emphasis on detecting signs early for needed treatment;- Daily Care: The gamut of care from feeding to bathing, with expanded information about toilet training;- Family Life: The impact on siblings and couples, discipline issues, and new material to help everyone understand that a child's behavior is a form of communication;- Development & Learning: Expectations about development plus new material on variability in development, learning styles, using reading todevelop language, memory strengths and weaknesses, and using play to encourage learning;- Early Intervention: An overview of services and therapies for babies & toddlers with new information on the transdisciplinary approach, providing services in the natural environment, transitioning preschool, and common questions & answers;- Legal Rights & Financial Issues: Explains your child's educational and legal rights, and financial information, including the latest on federal education and civil rights laws, sources of financial assistance, health insurance, trusts, and guardianship.Full of new photos, parent statements, updated and expanded resources and reading lists, this build everything parents need to build a bright and healthy future for their child with Down syndrome.

Teach Your Children Well: Why Values and Coping Skills Matter More Than Grades, Trophies, or "Fat Envelopes"


Madeline Levine - 2012
    However, until we are clearer about our core values and the parenting choices that are most likely to lead to authentic, and not superficial, success, we will continue to raise exhausted, externally driven, impaired children who believe they are only as good as their last performance. Real success is always an inside job, argues Levine, and is measured not by today's report card but by the people our children become fifteen or twenty years down the line.Refusing to be diverted by manufactured controversies such as "tiger moms versus coddling moms," Levine confronts the real issues behind the way we push some of our kids to the breaking point while dismissing the talents and interests of many others. She shows us how to shift our focus from the excesses of hyperparenting and the unhealthy reliance on our children for status and meaning to a parenting style that concentrates on both enabling academic success as well as developing a sense of purpose, well-being, connection, and meaning in our children's lives.Teach Your Children Well is a call to action. And while it takes courage to make the changes we believe in, the time has come, says Levine, to return our overwrought families to a healthier and saner version of themselves.

Children with Emerald Eyes: Histories of Extraordinary Boys and Girls


Mira Rothenberg - 1960
    Winner of a Woman of the Year award from the New York City Chamber of Commerce and the National Organization for Mentally Ill Children, she eloquently recounts a lifetime of taking on seemingly hopeless cases and bringing these children, through painstaking therapy and love, back into the world. Unflinchingly honest, whether dealing with the raw pain of her patients' lives or with Rothenberg's own complex feelings for them, Children with Emerald Eyes explores the landscape of mental illness while never losing sight of the humanity within each patient.

Different Minds: Gifted Children with AD/HD, Asperger Syndrome, and Other Learning Deficits


Deirdre V. Lovecky - 2003
    Explaining why certain children are gifted and how giftedness is manifested, each chapter on a specific topic addresses the relevance for children with AD/HD and Asperger Syndrome. Lovecky guides parents and professionals through methods of diagnosis and advises on how best to nurture individual needs, positive behavior and relationships at home and at school.Lovecky explores concepts such as asynchrony and the effects of such `uneven' development on children, using case studies to illustrate emotional, intellectual, creative and social development. She also highlights the inadequate measures currently in place to assist parents and teachers and goes on to clearly define what is required to understand and help these children so that their needs can be met more positively in the future. Different Minds, with its wealth of practical and background information, is essential reading for all those who live or work with gifted children with attention difficulties.

Anything But Typical


Nora Raleigh Baskin - 2009
    Most days it’s just a matter of time before something goes wrong. But Jason finds a glimmer of understanding when he comes across PhoenixBird, who posts stories to the same online site as he does.Jason can be himself when he writes and he thinks that PhoenixBird — her name is Rebecca — could be his first real friend. But as desperate as Jason is to meet her, he’s terrified that if they do meet, Rebecca will only see his autism and not who Jason really is.By acclaimed writer Nora Raleigh Baskin, this is the breathtaking depiction of an autistic boy’s struggles—and a story for anyone who has ever worried about fitting in.

Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom


Kristin Van Marter Souers - 2016
    The authors--a mental health therapist and a veteran principal--provide proven, reliable strategies to help youUnderstand what trauma is and how it hinders the learning, motivation, and success of all students in the classroom. Build strong relationships and create a safe space to enable students to learn at high levels. Adopt a strengths-based approach that leads you to recalibrate how you view destructive student behaviors and to perceive what students need to break negative cycles. Head off frustration and burnout with essential self-care techniques that will help you and your students flourish.Each chapter also includes questions and exercises to encourage reflection and extension of the ideas in this book. As an educator, you face the impact of trauma in the classroom every day. Let this book be your guide to seeking solutions rather than dwelling on problems, to building relationships that allow students to grow, thrive, and--most assuredly--learn at high levels.

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning


Peter C. Brown - 2014
    Good teaching, we believe, should be creatively tailored to the different learning styles of students and should use strategies that make learning easier. Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners.Memory plays a central role in our ability to carry out complex cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to problems never before encountered and drawing inferences from facts already known. New insights into how memory is encoded, consolidated, and later retrieved have led to a better understanding of how we learn. Grappling with the impediments that make learning challenging leads both to more complex mastery and better retention of what was learned.Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive. Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly. More complex and durable learning come from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes, Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement.

The A-Z of Therapeutic Parenting: Strategies and Solutions


Sarah Naish - 2018
    This book provides everything you need to know in order to be able to effectively therapeutically parent.Providing a model of intervention, The A-Z of Therapeutic Parenting gives parents or caregivers an easy to follow process to use when responding to issues with their children. The following A-Z covers 60 common problems parents face, from acting aggressively to difficulties with sleep, with advice on what might trigger these issues, and how to respond.Easy to navigate and written in a straightforward style, this book is a 'must have' for all therapeutic parents.

Language at the Speed of Sight


Mark Seidenberg - 2017
    Little has changed, however, since then: over half of our children still read at a basic level and few become highly proficient. Many American children and adults are not functionally literate, with serious consequences. Poor readers are more likely to drop out of the educational system and as adults are unable to fully participate in the workforce, adequately manage their own health care, or advance their children's education. In Language at the Speed of Sight, internationally renowned cognitive scientist Mark Seidenberg reveals the underexplored science of reading, which spans cognitive science, neurobiology, and linguistics. As Seidenberg shows, the disconnect between science and education is a major factor in America's chronic underachievement. How we teach reading places many children at risk of failure, discriminates against poorer kids, and discourages even those who could have become more successful readers. Children aren't taught basic print skills because educators cling to the disproved theory that good readers guess the words in texts, a strategy that encourages skimming instead of close reading. Interventions for children with reading disabilities are delayed because parents are mistakenly told their kids will catch up if they work harder. Learning to read is more difficult for children who speak a minority dialect in the home, but that is not reflected in classroom practices. By building on science's insights, we can improve how our children read, and take real steps toward solving the inequality that illiteracy breeds. Both an expert look at our relationship with the written word and a rousing call to action, Language at the Speed of Sight is essential for parents, educators, policy makers, and all others who want to understand why so many fail to read, and how to change that.

Food Chaining: The Proven 6-Step Plan to Stop Picky Eating, Solve Feeding Problems, and Expand Your Child's Diet


Cheri Fraker - 2007
    Developed by a team of internationally known medical experts, Food Chaining helps you identify the reasons behind your child's picky eating habits -- be it medical, sensory, or because of allergies. Then, with a simple, 6-step method centered around taste, temperature, and texture, target foods are selected that are similar to the ones your child likes, gradually expanding to all food groups. Does your kid like French fries but won't touch veggies? Try hash browns, and slowly expand to sweet potato fries and zucchini sticks -- and then work your way to steamed vegetables. With helpful information about common food allergies, lists of sample food chains, advice for special needs children, as well as a pre-chaining program to prevent food aversions before they develop, Food Chaining is your guide to raising lifelong health eaters.

Parents Who Love Reading, Kids Who Don't: How It Happens and What You Can Do About It


Mary Leonhardt - 1993
    They're the kids who don't just do their homework, but pick up books and magazines to read for pleasure. Yet even parents who love to read sometimes find that their kids don't enjoy books. Now, Mary Leonhardt shows how to awaken, or reawaken, a child to the joy of reading. She even identifies the seven stages that children go through as they develop their reading skills and outlines what parents can do to help them along. Her advice is clear, down-to-earth, and proven effective.

Understanding Youth: Adolescent Development for Educators


Michael J. Nakkula - 2006
    Understanding Youth bridges the gap between adolescent development theory and practice.Nakkula and Toshalis explore how factors such as social class, peer and adult relationships, gender norms, and the media help to shape adolescents’ sense of themselves and their future expectations and aspirations.

Shaping School Culture: Pitfalls, Paradoxes, and Promises


Terrence E. Deal - 2009
    This new edition gives expanded attention to the important symbolic roles of school leaders, including practical suggestions on how leaders can balance cultural goals and values against accountability demands, and features new and powerful case examples throughout. Most important, the authors show how school leaders can transform negative and toxic cultures so that trust, commitment, and sense of unity can prevail. Praise for Shaping School Culture "For those seeking enduring change that is measured in generations rather than months, and to create a legacy rather than a headline, then Shaping School Culture is your guide." —Dr. Douglas B. Reeves, founder, The Leadership and Learning Center, Englewood, CO "Deal and Peterson combine exquisite language, vibrant stories, and sage advice to support school leaders in embracing the paradoxical nature of their work. A 'must read' for all school leaders." —Pam Robbins, educational consultant and author "Once again, the authors have presented practitioners, researchers, professional developers, school coaches, and others with a tremendous resource for renovating and reinvigorating schools." —Karen M. Dyer, Ed.D., group director, Education and Nonprofit Sector Office, Center for CreativeLeadership, Greensboro, NC