Developmental-disabilities Books

I am happy to thank the seller because the book in good shape and received it on time.

Arrived as said, in good condition although it took slightly longer but still during estimated arrival time.

I bought right through Amazon, I got my book in a timely manner and it arrived in perfect condition. It was great. Thanks!

The seller was nasty and non professional replaying to an e-mail. He blamed defects on book on post office and his customer,he refused to assume responsability.

This text was great. I was very impressed with the thoroughness of the info. and found it to very informative for my class. I went in with a wealth of knowledge for sure

This book was a real eye opener. It actually had a frightening tone to its information - that I'm sure was designed to grasp the attention of the reader who most likely is a parent with questions about the drug Ritalin. It was useful. Everyone with "active" children should read it before doing the extreme.

I am the mother of Ben, who has had lots of labels...Adhd, Autism, PDD, brat. Somehow he has made it through to the fourth grade and basically is a bright kid.

Ben was languaged delayed and might not have made it in the regular classroom without ritalin because he was just out of control and I was clueless as to how to change. In earlier days, we literally had to "show" Ben how to talk, with pictures... he had to "see" it to understand it, as he didn't pick up language as most kids do. He was different from the beginning!!!

He is the most frustrating, and the most enjoyable of kids I have ever had the pleasure to love. But when it came to correction, I just believed I would have to spend the rest of my life ignoring his oppositionality. It was like I had no control...and just kept getting more and more frustrated, and giving more and more negative vibes off because I was just at my wits end. I don't like the idea of spanking or yelling at all, and it always just seemed to make matters worse. Ben took no responsibility for his behavior.

When I came across this book initially I ignored it because it was that crazy "anti-ritalin" crowd, or so I thought. You know, the "zealots". After having read it and applied it somewhat, I wonder if Dr. Stein hasn't serendipitously (sp?) come across a way to help our kids behave, in the same way Catherine Maurice's book helped provide me with a way to teach Ben language!! Hey, we're on this earth to help each other out!

I really do believe Ben has a difference that makes it hard to deal with some aspects of schooling. I don't recall anywhere in this book Dr. Stein saying that it's easy. But if I only give in and say, "He can't do it, he's handicapped..." am I really helping him? It isn't a matter of ritalin or not...what this book forces you to think about is how we as parents unfortunately handicap our children by having such low expectations of them.

How can a form of discipline that includes no yelling or spanking, no belittlement; that encourages positive behavior and encourages thinking of the consequences of actions beforehand; that requires us as parents to refuse to see our children as handicapped and to enrich their lives and show them unconditional love, be bad?

Got me....

(...)

If you are looking for sound advice and information, try something more current and balanced. If you are looking to support a preconceived opinion that AD/HD is not real, and that ritalin is used merely to control normal and active children, you may not need this book. You are already convinced.

I am a 37 year old mother of five children (ages 9-16) and a master's degree seminary student. I recently borrowed this from my school's library while working on a research paper. I find that Dr. Stein uses fallacious reasoning and scare tactics to promote his ideas. His writing is sarcastic and disrespectful towards parents, teachers, physicians, psychologists, and researchers. Furthermore, his work is poorly supported, and the research he cites is extremely out of date. Out of 54 total sources (which is very few for such an ambitious book), only 16 are less than ten years old, and none are peer-reviewed research on AD/HD. In contrast, there were 12, 077 results in an academic search database (searched today) for the keywords: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Surely Dr. Stein could have used a few of those to support his arguments. He asserts his opinion as a supposed counterpoint to a conspiracy of highbrow drug pushers. His arguments are similar to all conspiracy theorists.

AD/HD is one of the most heavily researched psychological disorders. Between June 1, 2008 and July 2, 2008 there were 131 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles published. Dr. Stein argues that the motivation for research on this disorder is primarily driven by the greed of drug companies. He fails to tell us that AD/HD is shown to increase many risk factors, especially when untreated, for dangerous and criminal behavior in teens and adults. It is also associated with other concerns that affect quality of life throughout the lifespan. AD/HD is not only a personal problem, it is a public health problem. The nation of Canada recommends that all teenage drivers diagnosed with AD/HD use stimulant medication while driving, because the scientific research is so strong that the drug reduces risk taking and traffic collisions in AD/HD drivers. These are real and supportable concerns that are not about control, but health and safety.

Children and adults with significant AD/HD need real treatment from competent practitioners: psychiatrists, counselors, therapists, and clinical social workers. Parents of children with AD/HD need support and help, not advice such as, "These children lack the essential values needed to sustain them through each school day and through the long educational years. School work isn't easy. ... Parents must instill a love of learning and education to curtain a child's inattention and misbehavior in school" (p. 37). Dr. Stein informs us that children with AD/HD simply aren't trying hard enough because their parents haven't properly instilled the value of education and a love of learning. This is a completely unsupported statement, both in research and practice with AD/HD families. It is also extremely harmful thinking that may escalate the tensions often found in families that deal with this disorder.

It must be acknowledged, however, that Dr. Stein speaks to the problem of wrong diagnoses and poor treatment choices. It is true that many other disorders can look like AD/HD (e.g., allergies) and diagnosis must be made carefully in order to determine the best treatment plan. Furthermore, once a treatment method has been selected, it must be monitored carefully and adjusted until optimal. Both pharmaceutical and behavioral interventions are appropriate and often beneficial. AD/HD diagnosed individuals should not be denied appropriate treatment due to the extremes on either side of the argument.

Did you know that there is no scientific test for the presence of ADD/ADHD? According to Dr. Stein that's because ADD/ADHD is NOT the epidemic biological/chemical/genetic/dietary disease that today's popular medicine would have us believe. It's what grade schools used to call poor conduct, and it can be corrected with a two-pronged, drug-free approach: increase praise to reward good conduct and use boredom--what I refer to as "Time Out on Steroids"--to correct bad conduct. The book includes a simple, well-reasoned explanation of what Dr. Stein believes causes kids to be inattentive (IA) and highly misbehaving (HM). More importantly for parents like me it includes a detailed, step by step, VERY PRACTICAL program for working with an IA/HM child in a broad variety of settings (e.g. at home, at a store, in the car). He calls this the Caregivers Skills Program (CSP).

The key to the CSP is that it helps the child understand that it's to his benefit to think...think about the consequences of his actions, think about the rules, think about the feelings of others, etc. This book is surprisingly short for the importance of its subject, reads very quickly, is down to earth and to-the-point. Dr. Stein includes just the right amount of the theories behind the CSP so parents can build on the specifics in the CSP to handle other situations not specifically covered by the book.

If you're considering resorting to drugs or professional counseling to try and help a child you suspect might be ADD/ADHD, you owe it to the child and yourself to read this book first.

Do you want to be blown away by the straight-forward truth. Our child was out of control, dominating every situation we were in - it was all about him and his inability to see others. Inattentive, can't focus, getting F's in school, only because ....(the list is endless), this book lays out how to get your child on the right tract so he/she can be a contributer to society and not take from everyone.


This book spells out what our Grandparents knew and could not tell us. No more drugs, no more psycologist office visits, no more check lists and prizes, no more manipulation and bargaining; 'let your yes be a yes! and your no be a no!'
This book teaches us parents how to use gentle, firm, consistent tones so anxiety is not produced in these children.
This book talks about the way some children receive information; what are we doing as parents???? This book is not for cowards. If you are a parent who is easily influenced, this book is not for you, it is a wake up call to how we as parents parent.

Our child just received his report card...I want to cry because I am so greatful for the transformation. He received almost all A's and some B's. He can now actually draw a picture with detail. Before he would scrible on an assignment and say, "I'm done." I follow Dr. Stein's recommendations and have found peace. Our son's brothers and sister now have a friend and not a bully for a brother. It is truly amazing.

The book was brand new and in perfect condition. The actual book is an easy read and very informative. It shipped quickly too

This book is good. It covers a wide range of topics, with a great deal of information. I would recommend it if you work with the DD population.

This is the most comprehensive guide I have found in the field of developmental disabilities. This book should be a must for service providers to use in training support staff. Parents will find it useful as well, especially those with adult children with disabilties.

Jane Bernstein has done an amazing job describing the heartbreak of the initial diagnosis and the ensuing challenges of raising a child with special needs. Having been in this same position with my own daughter, I felt like Jane was sitting in my kitchen watching the struggles we were having and the ones we faced with each passing day. I have recommended this book to colleagues and other families with similar circumstances.

I thought this was a wonderful book. It manages to be not only about what it's like to give birth to a disabled child, but about the particular nuances and responses of a family, about a marriage, an older child's attempts to navigate these waters, the narrator's complex, ambivalent but ultimately loving and couragous response to the child she has borne. Nothing is simple in this book--not Rachels' progress, not her family's response to her, not the medical world that sometimes seems to hurt her as much as it helps her, not the waiting and waiting to see what Rachel will become. Nonetheless, this is a story not only about endurance, but also about the complicated, powerful workings of maternal love.

I have a child who also has this disorder. Loving Rachel was important for me to read because there are no other books written which address Optic Nerve Hypoplasia or Septo Optic Dysplasia, but I want everyone to know who considers reading this that Loving Rachel is not a guide for you or your child and that no two people are affected in exactly the same way by this disorder. I could relate with some of the things Ms. Bernstein wrote about but mainly I walked away from this book feeling sad for this family and for Rachel.

Brilliant, a book about ADHD from the UK perspective, Alison and Jon write about all the things those who are just starting on the road to ADHD want and need to know. They offer practical advice not just to professionals but to parents alike, they discuss the here and now of initial diagnosis and treatment options for children with ADHD and long term prospects including a section on adult ADD, looking into all the questions of treatment options and self help support.

An essential book for UK outlook for all those involved in ADHD.

Brilliant, a book about ADHD from the UK perspective, Alison and Jon write about all the things those who are just starting on the road to ADHD want and need to know. They offer practical advice not just to professionals but to parents alike, they discuss the here and now of initial diagnosis and treatment options for children with ADHD and long term prospects including a section on adult ADD, looking into all the questions of treatment options and self help support.

An essential book for UK outlook for all those involved in ADHD.

In general, this is a fine book. It discussed the risks factors of developing antisocial behaviors. It also gives some ideas on the principles and best-practices of preventing or intervening antisocial behaviors. It is an academic textbook with lots of theory and data so is a good reference book for teachers. On the other hand, I feel the same messages are repeated over and over again, with different twists, that the best way to advert antisocial behaviors are two: (1) early prevention, and (2) comprehensive (meaning to involve as many people as possible.) I think the book can be shorter and perhaps less expensive.

Awesome Book! Useful, practical and research based ideas for all educators. It doesn't present short term "magic cures," however those really never work anyway. Instead the focus is on long term solutions for prevention & intervention with these tough kids. A must for your professional library (however, start saving those pennies, it is a little pricey).

This book should be the basis for all further research in the area of music therapy. I have sincerely never read a better work than this one on music therapy. Excellent theoretical background information and well-explained.

Some of the articles I was able to read quite easily, however, I had difficulty with most of the articles from British/European authors -- their theoretical background, if I'm not mistaken, seems to be in the Freudian/depth psychology area, or at least, schools of psychology with which I am not familiar -- my theoretical knowledge of psychology lies more in the various schools of psychology from the US.

I really wanted to like this book a lot, as I have two children with special needs and I am always wanting to read parent accounts of how they made it through the days and years with their children. This is a very well meant book, but I think there should have been more editing done before it was published. It had the feel of just taking anything that was submitted and including it in the book. This results in a collection of accounts that are vastly different in style and material. Some are very vague and try to be inspirational, a "Welcome to Holland" type of writing. Others are very specific and medical. Some are pretty much just angry rants, like the woman whose husband sounds unbelievably in denial and unhelpful, some are very upbeat. Of course it's true that everyone reacts to parenting a special needs child differently, but what also varies widely is the material---some essays never say what the special need of the child is, some include tiny details but leave bigger questions hanging, and some are just oddly written, like little short stories that are trying too hard to be literary.

I guess I would like a book that's more specific---what special need does each child have, how did the parents react to the news the child had that need, what were the early years like, where does the child go to school, how do the siblings get along...all of which were addressed a little here and there in this book.

I thank the authors and editors for trying, though. I am sure that some people will find inspiration here.

I read this book while expecting a child with special needs. It helped explain some of what I was going through. The grieving, the denial, etc. I liked the format of personal experiences combined with the professional essays. Both were helpful. Some of the thoughts were extremely helpful, including the title, which says that my child is a different kind of perfect.

This was the first book that I read by this researcher, after reading a small article in a magazine. Feurerstein clearly explains how a learning disability is self referencing. The disability usually induces an environment which offers less opportunities to learn and so the individual learns less,and as a result his environment becomes even less generous. Feurerstein offers strategies for parents and educators to counteract this tendency of the disability to imbed itself. It gives clear names for the cognitive functions which are the tools of thinking, and shows how parents and educators can train themselves to become aware of these behaviours or the lack of them. The diagnostic procedures look not for an average of abilities but for areas of strength and weakness and most importantly for potential to learn in any area. Building upon strength rather than supporting weakness is the basic idea. Feurerstein exposes the dangers of overeliance on concrete aids for students who have difficulty reasoning abstractly. Instead he suggests that they should be taught to reason abstractly, and then shows us how. Some of the language in this book is offputting for the non-academic person and some of the things described may be confronting.

The title of this text is the best part of the book. Feuerstein's thesis is that in order to help Down Syndrome ("DS") children, the almost banal expression "Accept me [him] as I am [he is]" is definitely not the way to go. Instead, the idea is to challenge the retarded child in a manner that does not set out pre-established limits. Feurstein et al base their cognitive theories on the basic premise of the ability to modify. Chapter 2 is an excellent discussion of the two opposing schools of thought in connection with retarded children: (a) the passive-acceptant ("PA") approach versus Feuerstein's active-modification ("AM") theory. As the name implies, the PA approach is one based on a passive acceptance of the child's handicap, and a well-meaning and even loving desire not to set what at first would seem like unattainable goals. In fact, there are few (if any) expectations for the handicapped person. They arise from well-meaning people that would like to shelter the DS child from a cruel and uncaring world by making sure that he is educated only with other DS children and that only very modest expectations can be held as to cognitive development.

Feuerstein's AM approach, on the other hand, is not any less "loving" than the PA approach, but it does not accept the handicap (physical or mental) as some sort of fatalistic impediment to growth and development. Instead, he proposes that the handicaps (and some much more severe than DS) can be modified and some can be overcome, and that a lack of challenging goals and hard work can easily become self-fulfilling prophesy in terms of growth for children with limitations. Handicapped children need to be fully integrated with "normal" children as the only way to obtain excellence in achieving these goals. This is similar to the "conductive education" theory which does not accept the physical condition of the individual as setting unsurpassable barriers to functional change (cf. Dr. Petö in Budapest, and his successor, Dr. Maria Hari). Crucial to the AM approach is the active involvement not only of the educator/mediator but also of the retarded child. The goal of modifying the handicap involves hard work that should not be carried out on behalf of, or for the child, but instead with and through him. In essence, AM is not a patronizing approach. Feurstein et al demonstrate that DS children and others with low IQs should not "wither away in institutions." These children are "neither hopeless nor helpless, and certainly not deserving of society's disparagement or pity." Children with intelligence limitations can lead "rich, active, joyous, and even independent lives as contributors to society." Ultimately, that attitude shows more true caring than one which gives up before trying.

Despite what seem like very good ideas and concepts, Feuerstein promises in the early chapters much more than he delivers in this text. The book is full of unnecessary jargon, placed into acronyms to make it even more unreadable, focusing too much on the "what" without the "how" or the "why" of changes experimented by DS patients. One can take the jargon at the beginning (such as the "PA" and "AM" cited above). However, it gets thicker and in a completely gratuitous manner with expressions like "Structural Cognitive Modifiability" ("SCM") where "change" or "adaptability" would have fitted as well, "Mediated Learning Experience" ("MLE") instead of a simpler "interactive education," the rather insane acronym of "FRIWAFTT" (!) where the author offers the "helpful" saying: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread," which might have been acceptable if it didn't stand for concepts that do not need acronyms, such as "feelings," "revenues," "ignorance," "waste" and other such terms. The confusing jargon gets worse with "LPAD" which stands for "Learning Potential Assessment Device" "IE" for "Instructional Enrichment" and others. Chapter 12, the one on Instrumental Enrichment, is perhaps the chapter that most promises to get into the "how" of changes detected by the authors in dealing with DS patients. However, it does not accomplish that either. Instead, the chapter is full of examples of the tools used without getting, in any given example, into the how/why and in-depth reasoning process that takes a previously handicapped person to someone who indeed is able to excel.

The other aspect of Feuerstein's book that is very unconvincing is the manner that he (or "they," as several authors collaborated on the book) describes an apparently hopeless case, and after throwing in some of the jargon in the paragraph above, these people become model citizens and are able to function at previously unimaginable levels. I would not have minded the "boasting" if they had actually explained with detail how something like "IE" or "LPAD" worked instead of saying simply that these tools worked. In that sense, it is a text that lacks a rigorous scientific method, or even a strictly clinical method. I came away from reading this book as if it had been some tantalizing publicity for something to be fully revealed at another later stage. And perhaps that is all the book aimed to do, since the author has indeed published more recent books and articles which perhaps better address these issues.

Having said the above, I would also say that the book is worth it just because of it's very clever subtitle, and because of a conceptual approach in the early chapters that encourages an active rather than a passive attitude toward DS, and in fact, any learning disability. It is all too easy to abandon hope under the patronizingly compassionate "let's accept him as he is." However, Feuerstein makes a convincing case for taking an active role, and in a persistent and even stubborn way, for finding some way to get through ("mediate") from a cognitive perspective.

An excellent summary of the influence of Goddard on New Jersey government policy during the eugenics scare. An eye-opening and readable book. Recommended to those with an interest in the history of U.S. social polocy toward people with handicaps.

In my research on eugenics on the deaf, of course many of the deaf were placed undert the generic name 'feeble-minded' especially if they did not know they were deaf. This was the favorite catch-all psychological and social term from the 1850's to at least the 1940's. In their quest to prove that feeble-mindedness was inherited Davenport and Goddard in the United States 'found' a family who they thought illustrated their beliefs in the finest way. In the process they denigrated a family history on the basis of a pseudo-science which used no scientific methodology but rather labeled an entire family based on their perception of this family's looks and abilities.

What is even more sad is that the woman who ended up in Goddard's institution for the feeble-minded for her entire and long life, was actually a beautiful and given the environment she was placed in, accomplished person. And she was placed there because the step-father of her family did not want children in the household who were not his.

This book was written by Smith to shred the evidence that the eugenists used to black-ball this family. He wrote a short rehistory of the family, and did research which showed that the eugenists went so far as to retouch pictures to make the family look worse. He also did a fine job of showing the completely unscientific methodology used to prove the eugenic theory of inherited poverty, feeble-mindedness, and criminality. Smith finally clears the name of this family by proving Goddard as what he was--a prejudiced charlatan with no thought except for his own fame.

With the near completion of the family genome, and the specter of eugenicism raising its ugly head again, it should be considered by the publishers to reprint this book as a reminder of how social attitudes affect science. I think it is also needed to once again continue to clear this family's history (even though the names are made up) because so much was written to denigrate them.

Karen Sadler, Science Education, University of Pittsburgh