Idiots: Stories about Mindedness and Mental Retardation is a book about four children and the people who, in many respects, define their humanity. Mindedness is a quality associated with humanity that receives little attention in the scientific literature of mental retardation. The children's stories are written against the prevailing glare of the diagnoses traditional canon. Confronting mental retardation as a socially constructed disease that implies having something less than a mind, this book speaks to the rewards awaiting those who are willing to look beyond the disciplinary boundaries that define the diagnosis.

It takes a team of professionals working together to support a child's emotional, physical, and academic development. Effective Collaboration for Educating the Whole Child examines collaboration between educators to successfully teach children with complex learning needs, both with and without identified disabilities. This book for primary and secondary general and special education teachers, administrators, and student support specialists explores how to make collaboration and coordination work, who takes responsibility for the process, and why collaboration is central to improving outcomes for students considered at risk. Focusing on coordinating across systems to improve education, the author: - Discusses the roles, responsibilities, and relationships between school professionals, community agencies, and service providers - Offers case examples in each chapter as windows into schools and classrooms - Emphasizes important developmental transitions from the primary years through secondary school and after - Presents personal reflections from parents, students, and professionals Developmentally responsive school environments depend on constructive relationships between the adults in a student's life, making this a vital resource for anyone who interacts with children.

Ideal for Introduction to Special Education/Introduction to Exceptionalities courses, this supplementary text provides strategies pre-service and in-service teachers can use to apply the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to their lesson planning. UDL lesson planning considers "up front" potential barriers that could limit access to instruction for some learners and helps teachers brainstorm possible solutions before lessons begin. The lessons included in this text are meant as a starting point for general education teachers who have students with special needs in their classrooms and can be adapted for K-12 learners with a wide range of challenges. Key Features: This text consists of lesson plans to address learners from ten major disability areas covered in every standard Introductory textbook: Intellectual Disabilities; Learning Disabilities; Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder; Emotional or Behavioral Disorders; Autism Spectrum Disorders; Speech and Language Disorders; Hearing Impairments; Visual Impairments; Physical Disabilities; Health Disabilities, and Related Low-Incidence Disabilities; and Gifted and Talented. Metcalf provides one lesson plan at the elementary school level and one at the secondary level for each area of exceptionality.

Up to ten per cent of the population is believed to suffer from some form of dyspraxia. Accessible and engaging, this practical guide provides teachers with tips and techniques for teaching students with dyspraxia. There are symptoms, there are problems, there are frustrations, there are tears. But there are strategies that can lead to positive outcomes. And while it is important to understand where it comes from, providing support and guidance is what this book is all about. From the introduction, this book will prove invaluable reading for everyone who works with young people. This new edition contains new chapters on cures and adolescence.

Enfrentando la Discapacidad y el Deterioro Fisico
Un Manual por Rick Ritter, MSW

Este manual ofrece mas de 50 ejercicios con preguntas disenadas para fortalecer la capacidad de procesar efectivamente una discapacidad y las perdidas asociadas.

Los ejercicios en Enfrentando la Discapacidad y el Deterioro Fisico nacieron luego de diez anos de experiencias de trabajo social clinico con clientes cuadriplegicos, paraplejicos, con amputaciones, cancer, quemaduras graves, SIDA, y desordenes del tipo neuro-muscular, resultante de accidentes, traumatismos, y enfermedad.

Que se dice sobre Enfrentando la Discapacidad y el Deterioro Fisico "Este manual nos estimula a enfocarnos en asuntos que son cruciales para enfrentar con exito las perdidas y la discapacidad" - Beni R. Jakob, Ph D, Fundacion Israeli contra la Artritis (INBAR)

"Este manual es un gran recurso, practico y facil de usar. El autor nos muestra su conexion con el material de una manera que nos permite beneficiarnos a todos" - Geneva Reynaga-Abiko, Psy.D., Sicologa Clinica, Universidad de Illinois, Centro de Consejeria Urbana-Champaign "Hasta ahora no conocia una herramienta que sirviera para ayudar a las personas con discapacidades a volverse mas conscientes y mas adaptadas en su nueva vida. Este manual les ayudara a ver las fortalezas y habilidades que aun tienen y a superar el hecho de estar discapacitado, mediante la recuperacion de la aceptacion de si mismo y de su capacidad funcional" - Ian Landry, MSW, RSW

Sobre el Autor

Rick Ritter, MSW, veterano discapacitado y trabajador social, ha trabajado con mas de cien clientes que sufren de perdidas de capacidad fisica y discapacidad. Este manual es una depuracion de las mejores preguntas y ejercicios para llevar al cliente a tomar control de su vida. Rick ha participado de eventos internacionales para atletas discapacitados, y ha contribuido con una parte importante del libro Got Parts? An insiders Guide to Managing Life Successfully with Dissociative Identity Disorder (Tienes Partes? Una Guia Autodidacta sobre Como Manejar Exitosamente la Vida con Desorden Disociativo de Identidad). Actualmente Rick vive en Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

Serie Nuevos Horizontes en Terapia
Editor: Robert Rich, Ph.D.
Enterese mas sobre este libro en www.physicalloss.com

"This book on transition portfolios provides state-of-the-art information on transitioning needs of a wide range of students with disabilities, including those with the most complex needs. Filled with practical ideas and strategies, this book supports the efforts of teachers and families to help the student progress successfully through the educational experience."
June Downing, Professor
California State University, Northridge

A special guide for both parents and educators, "The Learning Differences Sourcebook" identifies and evaluates learning differences and various methods of providing the best home and school environment for a child with a learning difference. It describes the behaviors of numerous learning differences plus medical psychosocial issues that interfere with learning and provides parents and educators with all the information they need to successfully manage the special needs of a child with a learning difference.

There is much evidence to show that digital technologies greatly impact children's lives through the use of computers, laptops and mobile devices. Children's uses of digital technologies are, therefore, currently of huge concern to academics, teachers and parents. Disabled Children and Digital Technologies investigates disabled children's learning with digital technologies within the context of inclusive education. Sue Cranmer explores the potential benefits of using digital technologies to support disabled children's learning whilst recognising that these technologies also have the potential to act as a barrier to inclusion. Cranmer provides a critical overview of how digital technologies are being used in contemporary classrooms for learning. The book includes detailed analysis of a recent study carried out with disabled children with visual impairments aged between 13 - 17 years old in mainstream secondary schools. The chapters consider the use of digital technologies in relation to access, engagement, attitudes, and skills, including safety and risk. These perspectives are complemented by interviews with teachers to explore how digital technologies can support disabled children's learning and inclusion in mainstream settings more effectively.

What does the latest research tell us about communication interventions for people with severe disabilities? Find out in this authoritative research volume, which investigates the effectiveness of today's communication interventions, synthesizes evidence from current studies, and identifies urgent research directions for the future. Shaped by a conference of The National Joint Committee on the Communication Needs of Persons with Severe Disabilities (NJC), this interdisciplinary book includes contributions from more than 30 top scholars from diverse fields, including psychology, special education, and speech language pathology. Each chapter gives readers a brief summary of research studies on a key intervention topic, insights on research design and measurement challenges, thoughts on future advances, and real-world clinical and educational recommendations. Essential for the reference libraries of educators and professionals, this book offers powerful insights about today's communication interventions-and sets a clear agenda for tomorrow's groundbreaking research Topics Included: prelinguistic communication intervention for young children with intellectual disabilities challenging behavior and communicative alternatives interventions for children who are deafblind augmented language interventions for children with severe disabilities parents as partners in communication intervention the role of cultural, ethnic, and linguistic differences targeted and phenotypic communication interventions for children with Down syndrome or ASD issues related to research study design, including sample size, the effectiveness of randomized controlled trials, and integration of single-case and group designs assessment and measurement of communication and language skills in individuals with severe intellectual disabilities and more The NJC conference was funded by the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders .

When their children were young, several parents interviewed for this book were told, "you can't expect much from your child." As they got older, the kids themselves often heard the same thing: that as children with disabilities, academic success would be elusive, if not impossible, for them. How Did You Get Here? clearly refutes these common, destructive assumptions. It chronicles the educational experiences-from early childhood through college-of sixteen students with disabilities and their paths to personal and academic success at Harvard University. Th e book explores common themes in their lives-including educational strategies, technologies, and undaunted intellectual ambitions-as well as the crucial roles played by parents, teachers, and other professionals. Above all, it provides a clear and candid account-in the voices of the students themselves-of what it takes to grapple eff ectively with the many challenges facing young people with disabilities. A compelling and practical book, How Did You Get Here? offers clear accounts not only of the challenges and biases facing young disabled students, but also of the opportunities they found, and created, on the way to academic and personal success.

As children's digital lives become more relevant to schools and educators, the question of play and learning is being revisited in new and interesting ways. Children's Virtual Play Worlds: Culture, Learning, and Participation provides a more reasoned account of children's play engagements in virtual worlds through a number of scholarly perspectives, exploring key concerns and issues which have come to the forefront. The global nature of the research in this edited volume embraces many different areas of study from school based research, sociology, cultural studies, psychology, to contract law showing how children's play and learning in virtual spaces has great potential and possibilities.

This book presents sixteen essays in the new literacy studies tradition, written during the period 1985-2010. It covers a diverse range of themes with a particular emphasis on topics of cultural, political and historical interest. The collection includes both previously published and unpublished works, and is organized in four sections. Topics addressed in Part 1 include functional literacy, the politics of literacy in Nicaragua during the Sandinista period (1979-1990), the rise of the working class press in Britain, and reader response and the teacher as meaning-maker. Part 2 discusses critical literacy and active citizenship, literacy and empowerment, language and the new capitalism, varying ways of using computers in and out of school, and the way a low achieving student challenges conventional notions of literacy failure. Part 3 addresses the new literacy studies and the study of new literacies, the theory and practice of attention economics, and early developments in the use of ratings within online communities and social practices. The final part of the book takes up the theme of researching new literacies, discusses practices of digital remix, and provides a case study of becoming research literate within a context of DIY media creation.

Ghosts of No Child Left Behind politically situates curriculum within a historically and critically informed context, to understand the structural forces that have contributed to the creation of a population of adolescents who read below a third grade level. The book then proposes a reconceptualization of literacy curriculum within a critical discourse to facilitate self-actualizing pedagogy for non-reading adolescents - some of whom are incarcerated. Rooted in a complex understanding of teaching, learning, and knowledge, this book presents information to policymakers, administrators, and educators that is vital to improving literacy instruction, curriculum, and policy. The information presented here can also inform the general public, especially parents, so that they may advocate for an educational infrastructure that promotes empowering literacy development for every student, including non-reading adolescents and younger struggling readers. This book is an unparalleled resource for teacher education courses focusing on literacy, critical pedagogy, policy, bilingual education, special education, and issues in urban education.

The education of deaf or hard of hearing children has become as complex as the varying needs of each individual child. Teachers face classrooms filled with students who are culturally Deaf, hard of hearing, or post-lingually deaf; they might use American Sign Language, cochlear implants, hearing aids/FM systems, speech, Signed English, sign-supported speech, contact signing, nonverbal communication, or some combination of methods. Educators who decide what tools are best for these children are making far-reaching ethical decisions in each case. This collection features ten chapters that work as constructive conversations to make the diverse needs of these deaf students the primary focus.

The initial essays establish fundamental points of ethical decision-making and emphasize that every situation should be examined not with regard for what is "right or wrong," but for what is "useful." Absolute objectivity is unattainable due to social influences, while "common knowledge" is ruled out in favor of "common awareness." Other chapters deal with the reality of interpreting through the professional's eyes, of how they are assessed, participate, and are valued in the total educational process, including mainstream environments. The various settings of education for deaf children are profiled, from residential schools to life in three cultures for deaf Latino students, to self-contained high school programs. "Ethical Considerations in Educating Deaf Children Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing" offers an invaluable set of guidelines for administrators and educators of children with hearing loss in virtually every environment in a postmodern world.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) stands at the forefront of contemporary efforts to create access to education curricula for all students, including those with disabilities. This policy reader comprises a notably wide range of articles that address the challenges and opportunities facing policy makers as they consider UDL's implications for federal, state, and local policy. It includes essays that place UDL in the context of the education field as a whole and that examine how UDL might inform pressing contemporary discussions about accountability and access to the curriculum. The volume also sheds light on various assistive technologies. It concludes by considering contemporary assessments of student learning and teacher effectiveness, and points to how they might be improved through UDL and by expanding opportunities for learning to more young people.

The Authentic Assessment Primer introduces education students to the phenomenon known as authentic assessment. As such, it is the perfect antidote to high stakes testing, since it relies on performance and shows what a student « can do. In an authentic approach, teachers see assessment as a means to educate and improve student performance, as opposed to simply auditing it on a one-shot test. Authentic tasks require quality performance connected to the learner's world. It is multilayered and complex. The Authentic Assessment Primer provides feedback continually and the learner self adjusts. This approach to assessment looks for higher order thinking skills and demonstration of knowledge. Beginning, intermediate, and advanced teachers can all benefit from understanding the goals, the process, and the techniques of authentic assessment, such as portfolios, essays, and writing samples, recordings, role plays, journal writing, and demonstrations to name a few. Every education student and instructor needs to read this book.

Epilepsy is neither an illness or a disease, but rather a tendency of the brain to be triggered to cause a spasm, a seizure or a fit, when neurones malfunction temporarily. Seizures can vary from major attacks which involve the whole brain to very minor, momentary 'absences.' This engaging book provides advice on the most effective teaching and learning strategies that can be used in the classroom to help students with epilepsy. Highly readable, practical and informative, this book will prove invaluable for teachers, trainees, SENCOs and teaching assistants.

'Caring for and working to support children struggling to cope with the confusing difficulties associated with speech and language impairment is unquestionably a huge challenge. The difficulties are diverse and wide-ranging and have significant implications on the child's ability to learn in general, but on the acquisition of an effective literacy level in particular.

This book is alive with tried and tested ideas and strategies that are equally valuable for school or at home. The warmth and passion Jill feels for her work with these children and their families shines through on every page. The holistic approach she takes to the work and the ever-present voice of the family underpinning everything Jill does puts this book in a class of its own.'

Gill Britten, Family Learning Co-ordinatorChildren with SLI are a challenging yet stimulating group to work with. To be successful in teaching them you need enthusiasm, patience, flexibility and a large bank of ideas. This book offers information, guidance and examples of good practice to teachers, learning assistants and parents. Included are rhymes for speech production and memory work, and a photocopiable word bank. This new edition has been fully updated and now includes a photocopiable, task-based assessment chapter, and a new chapter on Individual Education Plans with a bank of possible targets. >

The Accessible Games Book contains games specifically chosen or adapted for mixed groups including people with auditory or visual impairments, those in wheelchairs, and those with multiple disabilities. The games can also be used as a means of improving disability awareness among the non-disabled, and have been used successfully in the rehabilitation of stroke victims and groups of people of all abilities and ages.

Each game is explained clearly, with symbols to indicate the level of ability, suggestions for elaboration or modifications, and important points to remember. Full details are given on any materials required for the games and whether the game requires small (fewer than ten), medium (10-40), or large (40 or more) groups. The Accessible Games Book is an important resource for those running playschemes or youth groups, or in training or educational situations.

Images of disability pervade language and literature, yet disability is, as sex was in the Victorian world, the ubiquitous unspoken topic in today's culture. The twenty-five essays in Disability Studies provide perspectives on disabled people and on disability in the humanities, art, the media, medicine, psychology, the academy, and society.