Meeting the Challenge of Learning Disabilities in Adulthood

Motivation is the key to learning. But very few parents and teachers have an effective arsenal of techniques at their disposal. Enter educator and acclaimed author Rick Lavoie, who arms all those who deal with children with proven, effective tools and strategies they can use to encourage any child to learn and achieve success.

Thoughtful and practical, this book will appeal to today’s busy parents, with its concise, easy-to-read style. Now in a convenient format, Don’t Miss the Bus! is even more accessible to parents with no time to spare. Smialek offers her expertise as a parent and teacher and shares her methods and anecdotes from her own home and classroom. She advocates a win-win approach with a concise action plan to prevent problems before they happen and maintain dignity for both parents and kids. Don’t Miss the Bus! focuses on children’s strengths rather than their weaknesses, resulting in happier, more knowledgeable, and more resilient parent-child-teacher relationships.

This completely updated book contains new chapters on Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and on the public laws that guarantee an equal education for learning disabled children. There is also an entirely new section on learning disabled adults and the laws that protect them. Sally Smith, the parent of a learning disabled child herself, guides parents along every step of the way, from determining if their child is learning disabled to challenging the school system to provide special services. Drawing on more than twenty-five years of experience at her own nationally acclaimed school, she also offers valuable strategies to teachers who are anxious or discouraged as they struggle with learning disabled students. Although there are no easy answers, Sally Smith’s experience, wealth of information, and sense of humor provide essential support.

Practical and comprehensive, this book focuses on the nuts and bolts of designing positive behavior support plans for students with such disabilities as mental retardation, autism, learning disabilities, and emotional/behavioral disorders. Strategies are provided for addressing individual behavioral problems at all levels of severity. Filled with illustrative examples, the book shows how to conduct a functional assessment and develop an overall support plan, using a team-based approach.

In this practical handbook for parents, clinical psychologists Brooks and Goldstein draw on their considerable experience working with children and families to demonstrate that parents’ core goal should be to instill in their children a sense of inner recourse. “A resilient child is an emotionally healthy child, equipped to successfully confront challenges and bounce back from setbacks,” they contend, and to this end they provide 10 parenting “guideposts” for nurturing the kind of resilience that helps children thrive.

The prevalence of learning disabilities has provoked both the growth of research into the field and the development of educational interventions to assist those with learning disabilities. This book’s aim is to present the current state of this research and intervention ideas and programs. It includes updated material on the 1997 re-authorization of IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and expanded coverage of ADHD and its relationship to learning disabilities. This book presents the latest information on the characteristics of persons with learning disabilities, the causes of their problems, and educational interventions to help them succeed in school and at work. The book is research-based, user-friendly, and practical. 

*This text refers to the Hardcover edition.