Developmental-disabilities Books

I have a 3 year old nonverbal , autistic child. We had heard of this system through a teacher and bought this book. In six months our son now shows us pictures in sentence structures due to this book. it has changed our lives. A brilliant book . Dont miss it

This consists of Phase I - VI, Additional Concepts, Other Goodies and Appendices covering about seventy-five pages. Each phase has three sections, The environment, the training steps and helpful hints.

Phase I - The physical exchange,Phase II - Expanding Spontaneity
Phase III - Picture Discrimination, Phase IV - Sentence Structure, Phase V - Responding to "What do you want?", Phase VI - Responsive and Spontaneous Commenting

PECS was first developed for use with preschool children with autism that had little or no speech. For the first phase there needs to be a reinforcer assessment. This means picking five to eight edibles that the child/student likes. The items preferred would be picked within five seconds. For those items that were picked at least three times remove them and conduct assessment with remaining items. This continues until a pool of three to five preferred items have been determined.

There are diagrams explaining how this system works. The process starts as backward chaining with the trainers delaying the verbal praise until the student has released the picture into the open hand of the trainer. The helpful hints in this first phase discuss finding the right symbol system.

Some will use black and white line drawings or product logos. Then the size of the photo is determined, usually two-inch. The trainer should wear a apron or waist pack to keep the pictures in and purchase lots of velcro!

Phase II has the trainer moving further away from the student and have the student remove the card from the board and hand to the trainer. The trainer can get up to make the student than have to stand up to hand the card. Verbal praise is continued with reinforcement while the exchange is in motion. A helpful hint is now to have a three-ring binder for the cards, as you move to more pictures.

A diagram in the book shows how this process is done in an easy to understand format. Picture-take picture to materials-materials (no interruptions)-take materials to work area (no interruptions)-activity(no interruptions)-get reward-finish activity-get reward-put materials away-take picture-go back to schedule.

Most books I have gotten are written for parents of younger children with Autism. This book helps with the slightly older child (teenager). It has given me a new perspective on how to help my child. I highly recommend this book to all who deal with teens or even younger children with autism. It has really good ideas on how to deal with the behaviors.

Why?

If you are dealing with autisitic youths that have behavioural or emotional challenges.
If you are an educational professional.
It is worth 5 stars it gives you a good scaffold to design your own management plan for a student. With comprehensive background and strategies without wasting your time with fluff.

Why Not?
If you are a parent of an ASD child or teenager then this book may well be pitched to much at the education system.

This book has helped me a great deal as a guidance counselor working with multiply disabled students. It is logical and provides guidelines that I can implement with students on an individual and group basis. I am always happy when I find resources that can help my students and can add to my professional arsenal.

"Promoting Self-Determination In Students With Developmental Disabilities" by Professor of Special Education Michael L. Wehmeyer (who is also the Associate Director of the Beach Center on Disability at the University of Kansas, and the Director of the Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities) is based on the finding that self-determination is a significant factor in improving educational performance and transition outcomes in students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Professor Wehmeyer surveys and assesses various methods for teaching components of self-determination (including making choices, problem solving, decision making, goal setting, self-advocacy, and self-regulated learning) and makes practical recommendations that classroom teachers can immediately apply within their classrooms and within their curriculums regardless of the subject matter. A work of seminal scholarship which is enhanced with reproducible worksheets and forms, extensive references, and a comprehensive index, "Promoting Self-Determination In Students With Developmental Disabilities" is a the latest title in the impressive 'What Works for Special-Needs Learners' series from Guilford Publications. Also available in a hardcover edition (9781593854614, $48.00), "Promoting Self-Determination In Students With Developmental Disabilities is strongly recommended reading for the teachers and counselors of special needs students.

This is a fantastic book for school professionals to read. It's easy reading and puts it in a format to help the teacher and others at the school know what your child needs and how to attain it.

This is by far the most helpful book we have read so far on FASD. If you are raising a child with featl alcohol syndrome disorder, then this is the book for you! Very helpful and great ideas you can use.

Easy read for families and teachers. He discusses using requesting skills to replace instances of severe behavior. He explains in detail how to get a child to mand for breaks rather than engage in disruptive behavior. However, a person can design a plan to replace the break requests with whatever the child needs to match the behavior function they are seeking (e.g. attention, tangibles, etc.).

Dr. Durand presents an easily understood, yet technically tight, presentation of functional communication training. Dr. Durand provides an excellent demonstration of the applied analysis of behavior and provides a framework for understanding that behavior. This book should be read by anyone and everyone who works with individuals with communiction difficulties who are engaging in troubling behavior.

I love finding a helpful book when I need one. Boucher's text on adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders is thoughtfully constructed, seems to have anticipated my informational needs, and is written in an understandable, yet content-rich style. She clarifies emotional and behavioral disorder concepts and educational strategies with many examples drawn from the lives of dozens of adolescents in discord. Thanks to the clarity of these illustrations, I better understand a wide variety of behaviors and recognize them when I see them. Most importantly, I now have some practical ideas for assisting these students when I meet them in my profession.

STUDENTS IN DISCORD is comprehensive, very reader-friendly, well organized, well researched, and highly practical. It is a very worthwhile book for a professional audience.

Walking on a Rolling Deck: Life on the Ark

Berken's first book is amazing! I didn't want to put it down! It hits on everything: spirituality, disability, family, community, cancer, humor and simply living life. Life on the Ark is very real and very down to earth.

What makes this book so great is that anyone can read it, and find something to relate to. Anyone who knows someone who has dealt with cancer. Anyone who knows someone with a disability. Anyone who has dealt with divorce, and family, and starting over, and then incorporating the power of spirituality into all of those things.

This book is amazing, and no matter who you are, or where you are on your journey, you will learn something from this book... and no doubt you will laugh and cry.

Walking on a Rolling Deck: Life on the Ark is the true-life memoir of author Kathleen C. Berken, of her life-changing choice to work as a live-in assistant in a L'Arche community in Clinton, Iowa, aiding men with developmental disabilities. A deeply spiritual testimony, Walking on a Rolling Deck tells of the inevitable difficulties of adjusting to change, confronting the specter of breast cancer, but most of all, of the benevolent power of God's love - a power all too often ignored, neglected, or obscured in today's world. Ultimately a simple story of Christian life and the resonance of faith, illustrated with a handful of black-and-white photographs, Walking on a Rolling Deck is highly recommended for Christian readers and anyone seeking to quietly contemplate the mystery of God that permeates even the most mundane aspects of daily life.

If you are in early intervention and are not already familiar with ABI (Activity Based Intervention), this book is absolutely necessary for you and your program. A mom and an interventionist, I have seen the best and worst of intervention approaches -- the approach laid out here is logical, complete, and responds to potential problems. Any program can be adapted to include activity based intervention, and anyone entering the field should be familiar with these pretexts. I highly recommend this book.

Dr. Jacobs has written another wonderful volume in practical parenting techniques. I read Dr. Jacobs' first book, "Fathering the ADHD Child," a few years ago, and it really helped me tremendously as a parent. Naturally, I was very eager to find out what new ideas Dr. Jacobs wanted to share with his second publication. I was astounded to find that I liked his new book even better! "ADHD: Helping Parents Help Their Children" does exactly that! It helps us help our kids find their way in this world. One of the most important, albeit painful, realizations of a parent is that he/she cannot be there for a child forever. Therefore, as parents, we must teach them everyday to thrive in the world independently. The book offers a number of very practical tools, such as charts, diaries, etc., to quantitatively track and manage positive and negative behaviors. These alone are worth many times the price of the book. It is simply amazing how much "true" progress we can make when we measure ourselves methodically and accurately. Clearly such goal setting and assessment techniques have proven helpful in weight control and anger management, but the application of such "scorecards" is actually even more effective with children. Kids just love to keep score! And they love to "win," so the motivation to succeed under a point system is very natural for youngsters. Frankly, I believe these tools can be very effective for any child, not just those with ADHD. Dr. Jacobs also offers pragmatic advice in a number of settings and situations. These include schooling, social skills, discipline, authority and medication. The book even covers the topic of marital issues, such as separation and divorce. I would encourage all parents who want to hone their childrearing skills to take a look at this book. Even those without ADHD children can benefit enormously from the concepts and techniques presented by Dr. Jacobs.

Es un libro que en toda casa con un nino con SA debe de tener. Explica de una forma facil que es lo que es el Sindrome de Asperger, ademas de cosas utiles para los papas. Es una forma mas de unir a los padres con sus hijos Aspies.