Best Disability Parenting

The latest research in child development shows that many kids who have the brain and heart to succeed lack or lag behind in crucial “executive skills”--the fundamental habits of mind required for getting organized, staying focused, and controlling impulses and emotions. As a parent of three children, one of whom has learning disabilities, and as a special education associate who works in the classroom, I highly recommend this book. "Filled with real-world examples and solutions, this easy-to-read book is the first comprehensive guide to the management of children's executive skills. Dawson and Guare explain the importance of executive skills and provide science-based strategies that empower you to start helping your child today." Dawson and Guare translate cutting-edge research into meaningful, practical, well-organized, and easy-to-implement strategies that parents can use to enhance a child's natural executive abilities. ( Library Journal 2009-01-04). "Fun to read....This book is quite interactive....Questionnaires are provided both for children (of various ages) as well as parents, so that they can both see their strengths and weaknesses....Techniques to teach executive skills are shown in a step-wise manner, and planning sheets are available throughout the text....Another strength of this book is its focus on the emotional aspect of executive functioning, and providing strategies to bolster the emotional skill set of children....Strongly recommended for any parent who wishes to help their children maximize their potential, even if they do not have identified academic or behavioral struggles."

It’s truly moving, eye-opening, incredibly vivid.”—Jon Stewart, The Daily Show NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY. NPR • The Wall Street Journal • Bloomberg Business • Bookish. Written by Naoki Higashida, a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, it is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Using an alphabet grid to painstakingly construct words, sentences, and thoughts that he is unable to speak out loud, Naoki answers even the most delicate questions that people want to know. In his introduction, bestselling novelist David Mitchell writes that Naoki’s words allowed him to feel, for the first time, as if his own autistic child was explaining what was happening in his mind. “It is no exaggeration to say that The Reason I Jump allowed me to round a corner in our relationship.” This translation was a labor of love by David and his wife, KA Yoshida, so they’d be able to share that feeling with friends, the wider autism community, and beyond. Andrew Solomon: Why do you think that such narratives from inside autism are so rare--and what do you think allowed Naoki Higashida to find a voice? While not belittling the Herculean work Naoki and his tutors and parents did when he was learning to type, I also think he got a lucky genetic/neural break: the manifestation of Naoki's autism just happens to be of a type that (a) permitted a cogent communicator to develop behind his initial speechlessness, and (b) then did not entomb this communicator by preventing him from writing. In this model, language is one subset of intelligence – and, Homo sapiens being the communicative, cooperative bunch that we are, rather a crucial one, for without linguistic intelligence it's hard to express (or even verify the existence of) the other types. I guess that people with autism who have no expressive language manifest their intelligence the same way you would if duct tape were put over your mouth and a 'Men in Black'-style memory zapper removed your ability to write: by identifying problems and solving them. AS: As you translated this book from the Japanese, did you feel you could represent his voice much as it was in his native language? DM: Our goal was to write the book as Naoki would have done if he was a 13 year-old British kid with autism, rather than a 13 year-old Japanese kid with autism. Linguistic directness can come over as vulgar in Japanese, but this is more of a problem when Japanese is the Into language than when it is the Out Of language. DM: Naoki has had a number of other books about autism published in Japan, both prior to and after Jump . In terms of public knowledge about autism, Europe is a decade behind the States, and Japan's about a decade behind us, and Naoki would view his role as that of an autism advocate, to close that gap.

--What dyslexia is and why some intelligent, gifted people read slowly and painfully. --How to identify dyslexia in preschoolers, schoolchildren, young adults, and adults. --How to find the best school and how to work productively with your child’s teacher. --Exercises to help children use the parts of the brain that control reading. --A 20-minute nightly home program to enhance reading. --The 150 most common problem words–a list that can give your child a head start. --Ways to raise and preserve a child’s self-esteem aqnd reveal his strengths. --Stories of successful men and women who are dyslexic. Yale neuroscientist Shaywitz demystifies the roots of dyslexia (a neurologically based reading difficulty affecting one in five children) and offers parents and educators hope that children with reading problems can be helped.

Boy Without Instructions: Surviving the Learning Curve of Parenting a child with ADHD changes that. "Read this well-written, empathetic book right away, feel less alone, and take away not only moral support but also valuable strategies for helping your child, yourself, and your family." "If you have a child struggling to scribble between the lines of a 'typical' world expectation, this book could enliven your courage to draw new lines of adaption and acceptance for your child living with ADHD."

Groundbreaking and comprehensive, Driven to Distraction has been a lifeline to the approximately eighteen million Americans who are thought to have ADHD. Wise, practical, and reassuring.” —Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., author of Endangered Minds and Different Learners “The first comprehensive book on the subject for the lay reader.” — The Boston Globe.

Groundbreaking and comprehensive, Driven to Distraction has been a lifeline to the approximately eighteen million Americans who are thought to have ADHD. Wise, practical, and reassuring.” —Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., author of Endangered Minds and Different Learners “The first comprehensive book on the subject for the lay reader.” — The Boston Globe.

It’s truly moving, eye-opening, incredibly vivid.”—Jon Stewart, The Daily Show NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY. NPR • The Wall Street Journal • Bloomberg Business • Bookish. Written by Naoki Higashida, a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, it is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Using an alphabet grid to painstakingly construct words, sentences, and thoughts that he is unable to speak out loud, Naoki answers even the most delicate questions that people want to know. In his introduction, bestselling novelist David Mitchell writes that Naoki’s words allowed him to feel, for the first time, as if his own autistic child was explaining what was happening in his mind. “It is no exaggeration to say that The Reason I Jump allowed me to round a corner in our relationship.” This translation was a labor of love by David and his wife, KA Yoshida, so they’d be able to share that feeling with friends, the wider autism community, and beyond. Andrew Solomon is the author of several books including Far From the Tree and The Noonday Demon . David Mitchell: Autism comes in a bewildering and shifting array of shapes, severities, colors and sizes, as you of all writers know, Dr. Solomon, but the common denominator is a difficulty in communication. While not belittling the Herculean work Naoki and his tutors and parents did when he was learning to type, I also think he got a lucky genetic/neural break: the manifestation of Naoki's autism just happens to be of a type that (a) permitted a cogent communicator to develop behind his initial speechlessness, and (b) then did not entomb this communicator by preventing him from writing. Language, sure, the means by which we communicate: but intelligence is to definition what Teflon is to warm cooking oil. I guess that people with autism who have no expressive language manifest their intelligence the same way you would if duct tape were put over your mouth and a 'Men in Black'-style memory zapper removed your ability to write: by identifying problems and solving them. The only other regular head-bender is the rendering of onomatopoeia, for which Japanese has a synaesthetic genius – not just animal sounds, but qualities of light, or texture, or motion. DM: Their inclusion was, I guess, an idea of the book's original Japanese editor, for whom I can't speak. But for me they provide little coffee breaks from the Q&A, as well as showing that Naoki can write creatively and in slightly different styles. DM: Naoki has had a number of other books about autism published in Japan, both prior to and after Jump . This involves him reading 2a presentation aloud, and taking questions from the audience, which he answers by typing. (I happen to know that in a city the size of Hiroshima, of well over a million people, there isn't a single doctor qualified to give a diagnosis of autism.). It’s truly moving, eye-opening, incredibly vivid.” —Jon Stewart, The Daily Show “Please don’t assume that The Reason I Jump is just another book for the crowded autism shelf. This is an intimate book, one that brings readers right into an autistic mind—what it’s like without boundaries of time, why cues and prompts are necessary, and why it’s so impossible to hold someone else’s hand. This book takes about ninety minutes to read, and it will stretch your vision of what it is to be human.” —Andrew Solomon, The Times (U.K.). [Naoki Higashida’s] startling, moving insights offer a rare look inside the autistic mind.” — Parade. With about one in 88 children identified with an autism spectrum disorder, and family, friends, and educators hungry for information, this inspiring book’s continued success seems inevitable.” — Publishers Weekly “We have our received ideas, we believe they correspond roughly to the way things are, then a book comes along that simply blows all this so-called knowledge out of the water. Once you understand how Higashida managed to write this book, you lose your heart to him.” — New Statesman (U.K.) “Astonishing. In Mitchell and Yoshida’s translation, [Higashida] comes across as a thoughtful writer with a lucid simplicity that is both childlike and lyrical. Higashida is living proof of something we should all remember: in every autistic child, however cut off and distant they may outwardly seem, there resides a warm, beating heart.” — Financial Times (U.K.) “Higashida’s child’s-eye view of autism is as much a winsome work of the imagination as it is a user’s manual for parents, carers and teachers. “ The Reason I Jump is a wise, beautiful, intimate and courageous explanation of autism as it is lived every day by one remarkable boy. Naoki Higashida takes us ‘behind the mirror’—his testimony should be read by parents, teachers, siblings, friends, and anybody who knows and loves an autistic person. I only wish I’d had this book to defend myself when I was Naoki’s age.” —Tim Page, author of Parallel Play and professor of journalism and music at the University of Southern California “[Higashida] illuminates his autism from within.

Groundbreaking and comprehensive, Driven to Distraction has been a lifeline to the approximately eighteen million Americans who are thought to have ADHD. Wise, practical, and reassuring.” —Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., author of Endangered Minds and Different Learners “The first comprehensive book on the subject for the lay reader.” — The Boston Globe.

--What dyslexia is and why some intelligent, gifted people read slowly and painfully. --How to identify dyslexia in preschoolers, schoolchildren, young adults, and adults. --How to find the best school and how to work productively with your child’s teacher. --Exercises to help children use the parts of the brain that control reading. --A 20-minute nightly home program to enhance reading. --The 150 most common problem words–a list that can give your child a head start. --Ways to raise and preserve a child’s self-esteem aqnd reveal his strengths. --Stories of successful men and women who are dyslexic. Yale neuroscientist Shaywitz demystifies the roots of dyslexia (a neurologically based reading difficulty affecting one in five children) and offers parents and educators hope that children with reading problems can be helped.

As a parent of a child diagnosed with learning disabilities, she is acutely aware of the difficulties facing other parents like her, and she has devoted much of her time to helping these families. She specializes in nutritional treatments, and has become recognized as one of the world’s leading experts in treating children and adults with learning disabilities and other mental disorders, as well as children and adults with digestive and immune disorders.