Best Special Needs 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."

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.

Dr. Ross Greene, a distinguished clinician and pioneer in the treatment of kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, has worked with thousands of explosive children, and he has good news: these kids aren’t attention-seeking, manipulative, or unmotivated, and their parents aren’t passive, permissive pushovers. Instead of relying on rewarding and punishing, Dr. Greene’s Collaborative Problem Solving model promotes working with explosive children to solve the problems that precipitate explosive episodes, and teaching these kids the skills they lack. Screaming, swearing, crying, hitting, kicking, spitting, biting...these are some of the challenging behaviors we see in kids who are having difficulty meeting our expectations. In this fully revised and updated book, Dr. Ross Greene helps you understand why and when your child does these things and how to respond in ways that are nonpunitive, nonadversarial, humane, and effective.

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."

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."

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.

Build bonds of affection and trust with your adopted child Effectively deal with any learning or behavioral disorders Discipline your child with love without making him or her feel threatened. --Carol S. Kranowitz, author of The Out-of-Sync Child. " The Connected Child is the literary equivalent of an airline oxygen mask and instructions: place the mask over your own face first, then over the nose of your child. This book first assists the parent, saying, in effect, 'Calm down, you're not the first mom or dad in the world to face this hurdle, breathe deeply, then follow these simple steps.'. The sense of not facing these issues alone--the relief that your child's behavior is not off the charts--is hugely comforting. This book first assists the parent, saying, in effect, 'Calm down, you're not the first mom or dad in the world to face this hurdle, breathe deeply, then follow these simple steps.'. Other children have behaved this way; other parents have responded thusly; welcome to the community of therapeutic and joyful adoptive families."

The New York Times and Washington Post bestseller that changed the way millions communicate. The first edition of Crucial Conversations exploded onto the scene and revolutionized the way millions of people communicate when stakes are high. Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan , and Al Switzler are cofounders of VitalSmarts, an innovator in corporate training and organizational performance.

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."

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.