A SCHOLARLY BOOK REPOSITORY
"Jonah Lehmann is an accidental teacher of others, including his family and friends. This personal and touching account of Jonah's life is enlightening, especially to those coming to terms with similar challenges with autism and other cognitive disabilities. It was written with love to support research on autism, and I recommend it to anyone and everyone touched by those of us who are different."
---Patricia E. Kefalas Dudek, Legal Advocate for People with Disabilities
"I have never read a book about a disabled person that caught me from page one. I could not put this one down. Lehmann offers a profound perspective on living with the reality of a severely disabled child. This book will be required reading for students who take my class in Special Education Administration."
---Frances LaPlante-Sosnowsky, Associate Professor of Education at Wayne State University
"A story of the astonishing power of human love and family triumph over hardship. Lehmann's story, engaging and at times both heartbreaking and joyful, offers an intimate view of one mother's journey as she works with professionals and a blur of caregivers to assist the ever-changing needs of her son. I highly recommend it to seasoned professionals in the field of autism and students preparing for careers in special education."
---Janet E. Graetz, Assistant Professor of Human Development and Child Studies at Oakland University
A child teaches without intending to . . .
Having severe autism does not stop Annie Lehmann's son Jonah from teaching her some of life's most valuable lessons. The Accidental Teacher, a heartfelt memoir about self-discovery rather than illness, uses insight and humor to weave a tale rich with kitchen-table wisdom. It explains the realities of life with a largely nonverbal son and explores the frustrations and triumphs of the Lehmann family as Jonah grew into a young adult. This book is a must-read for anyone who has been personally touched by a major life challenge.
Annie Lubliner Lehmann, a freelance writer for more than twenty-five years, has published articles in many newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times and Detroit Free Press. She resides in Michigan with her husband and two of her three children. Her eldest son, who inspired this memoir, is now a young adult with autism who lives in a supervised home.
When, in 1968, 19-year-old Tressa Bowers took her baby daughter to an expert on deaf children, he pronounced that Alandra was “stone deaf,” she most likely would never be able to talk, and she probably would not get much of an education because of her communication limitations. Tressa refused to accept this stark assessment of Alandra’s prospects. Instead, she began the arduous process of starting her daughter’s education.
Economic need forced Tressa to move several times, and as a result, she and Alandra experienced a variety of learning environments: a pure oralist approach, which discouraged signing; Total Communication, in which the teachers spoke and signed simultaneously; a residential school for deaf children, where Signed English was employed; and a mainstream public school that relied upon interpreters. Changes at home added more demands, from Tressa’s divorce to her remarriage, her long work hours, and the ongoing challenge of complete communication within their family. Through it all, Tressa and Alandra never lost sight of their love for each other, and their affection rippled through the entire family. Today, Tressa can triumphantly point to her confident, educated daughter and also speak with pride of her wonderful relationship with her deaf grandchildren. Alandra’s Lilacs is a marvelous story about the resiliency and achievements of determined, loving people no matter what their circumstances might be.
“Thirty-seven years ago, I vowed to write a truthful book about raising a deaf child.” Rebecca Willman Gernon followed through on her promise with her deaf daughter Amy Willman in this extraordinary new narrative. Many stories have been told about a parent’s struggle to help her deaf child succeed in a mostly hearing world. Amy Signs marks a signature departure in that both Rebecca and Amy relate their perspectives on their journey together.
When she learns of 11-month-old Amy’s deafness in 1969, Rebecca fully expresses her anguish, and traces all of the difficulties she endured in trying to find the right educational environment for Amy. The sacrifices of the rest of her family weighed heavily on her, also. Though she resolved to place four-year-old Amy in Nebraska’s residential school for deaf students, the emotional toll seemed too much to bear.
Amy’s view acts as the perfect counterpoint. Interwoven with her mother’s story, Amy’s account confirms that signing served her best. She summarizes life in boarding school as “laughter and homesickness.” She laughed with all of her deaf friends, though felt homesick at times. Amy thanks her mother for the gift of sign, asserting that a mainstream education would never have led her to earn a master’s degree and later teach American Sign Language at the University of Nebraska. Amy Signs is a positive albeit cautionary tale for parents of deaf children today whose only choice is a mainstreamed education.
This study emphasizes the importance of family support for deaf members, particularly through the use of both American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken and/or written English. Research has shown how these factors influence such areas as a child’s development, performance in school, and relationships with brothers and sisters. In this volume, authors Barbara Bodner-Johnson and Beth S. Benedict concentrate on the vital, positive effects of bilingualism and how families that share their experiences with other families can enhance all of their children’s achievement and enrichment.
Bilingual Deaf and Hearing Families: Narrative Interviews describes the experiences of ten families who have at least one deaf family member. In five of the families, the parents are hearing and they have a deaf child; two of the children in these families have cochlear implants. In three families, both the parents and children are deaf. In one family, the parents are deaf and their daughter is hearing; and in one family, the parents and one child are deaf and they all have cochlear implants, and the deaf child’s twin is hearing.
The interviews were conducted in the families’ homes using set topics and questions. The family discussions cover a wide range of subjects: cochlear implants, where they live, their thoughts about family relationships, how they participate in the Deaf community, how they arrive at certain decisions, their children’s friendships, and the goals and resiliencies they have as a family.
“It all began with the bite of a mosquito. Yes, with a bite of this pesky, but seemingly so innocuous little insect that had been sucking her blood. Not just one, but hundreds had punctured her arms and legs with red marks which later swelled to small welts. Who would ever have thought that our family's life would become derailed, that its tightly woven fabric would eventually fray and break—all from the bite of a mosquito?”
A window on the insular world of autism, this book offers a rare close look at the mysterious condition that afflicts approximately 350,000 Americans and affects millions more. As they make sense of the many features of autism at every level of intellectual functioning across the life span, Marian Sigman and Lisa Capps weave together clinical vignettes, research findings, methodological considerations, and historical accounts. The result is a compelling, comprehensive view of the disorder, as true to human experience as it is to scientific observation.
Children with Autism is unique in that it views autism through the lens of developmental psychopathology, a discipline grounded in the belief that studies of normal and abnormal development can inform and enhance one another. Sigman and Capps conduct readers through the course of development from infancy to adulthood, outlining the differences between normal and autistic individuals at each stage and highlighting the links between growth in cognitive, social, and emotional domains. In particular, Sigman and Capps suggest that deficits in social understanding emerge in the early infancy of autistic children, and they explore how these deficits organize the development of autistic individuals through the course of their lives. They also examine the effects certain characteristics can have on an autistic person's adjustment over time. Their book concludes with an overview of existing interventions and promising avenues for further research.
Educational and Developmental Aspects of Deafness details the ongoing revolution in the education of deaf children. More than 20 researchers contributed their discoveries in anthropology, education, linguistics, psychology, sociology, and other major disciplines, with special concentration upon the education of deaf children.
Divided into two parts on education at home and in school, this incisive book documents breakthroughs such as the public's interest in sign language, the increasing availability of interpreters, the growing perception of deafness as a social condition, not a pathology, and other positive trends. It is unique as the first purely research-based text and reference point for further study of the education of deaf children.
La narradora Paty Corcoran es originaria de la Ciudad de México y ha trabajado como traductora, intérprete y locutora durante casi diez años. Vive en el sur de California con su esposo y sus tres hijos, donde también trabaja como guía turística bilingüe. Paty se graduó con honores de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México con una licenciatura en Ciencias de la Comunicación.
For over 30 years, The Silent Garden has offered parents of deaf children the support and unbiased information needed to fully realize their children’s potential. This new Spanish edition, which contains the first five chapters of the completely updated 3rd English edition, will help parents navigate the complex and unique challenges they face. Accessible, practical, and, above all, open-minded, El Jardín Silencioso educates parents quickly and thoroughly about the many conflicting points of view on what is best for their deaf children. Authors Paul W. Ogden and David H. Smith, who are both deaf, present examples and research that guide parents through often unfamiliar territory. El Jardín Silencioso covers the topics of communication, coping mechanisms for parents, creating healthy family environments, fostering independence, and understanding the perspectives of siblings. Always encouraging, El Jardín Silencioso empowers parents to be the best advocates for their deaf children.
Audiobook narrator Paty Corcoran is a native of Mexico City and has worked as a translator, interpreter, and voice-talent for almost ten years. She lives in Southern California with her husband and three children, where she also works as a bilingual tour guide. Paty graduated with honors from Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City with a degree in Communication Sciences.
La narradora Paty Corcoran es originaria de la Ciudad de México y ha trabajado como traductora, intérprete y locutora durante casi diez años. Vive en el sur de California con su esposo y sus tres hijos, donde también trabaja como guía turística bilingüe. Paty se graduó con honores de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México con una licenciatura en Ciencias de la Comunicación.
For over 30 years, The Silent Garden has offered parents of deaf children the support and unbiased information needed to fully realize their children’s potential. This new Spanish edition, which contains the first five chapters of the completely updated 3rd English edition, will help parents navigate the complex and unique challenges they face. Accessible, practical, and, above all, open-minded, El Jardín Silencioso educates parents quickly and thoroughly about the many conflicting points of view on what is best for their deaf children. Authors Paul W. Ogden and David H. Smith, who are both deaf, present examples and research that guide parents through often unfamiliar territory. El Jardín Silencioso covers the topics of communication, coping mechanisms for parents, creating healthy family environments, fostering independence, and understanding the perspectives of siblings. Always encouraging, El Jardín Silencioso empowers parents to be the best advocates for their deaf children.
Audiobook narrator Paty Corcoran is a native of Mexico City and has worked as a translator, interpreter, and voice-talent for almost ten years. She lives in Southern California with her husband and three children, where she also works as a bilingual tour guide. Paty graduated with honors from Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City with a degree in Communication Sciences.
Francis interviewed the mothers and fathers of children with such problems as depression, bi-polar disorder, autism, learning disabilities, drug addiction, alcoholism, fetal alcohol syndrome, and cerebral palsy. Children’s problems, she finds, profoundly upset the foundations of parents’ everyday lives, overturning taken-for-granted expectations, daily routines, and personal relationships. Indeed, these problems initiated a chain of disruption that moved through parents’ lives in domino-like fashion, culminating in a crisis characterized by uncertainty, loneliness, guilt, grief, and anxiety. Francis looks at how mothers and fathers often differ in their interpretation of a child’s condition, discusses the gendered nature of child rearing, and describes how parents struggle to find effective treatments and to successfully navigate medical and educational bureaucracies. But above all, Family Trouble examines how children’s problems disrupt middle-class dreams of the “normal” family. It captures how children’s problems “radiate” and spill over into other areas of parents’ lives, wreaking havoc even on their identities, leading them to reevaluate deeply held assumptions about their own sense of self and what it means to achieve the good life.
Engagingly written, Family Trouble offers insight to professionals and solace to parents. The book offers a clear message to anyone in the throes of family trouble: you are in good company, and you are not as different as you might feel...
Inclusion conjures images of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) learning in classes alongside peers in a mainstream school. For pupils in the UK with high-level SEND, who have an Education, Health and Care Plan (formerly a Statement), this implies an everyday educational experience similar to that of their typically developing classmates. Yet in vital respects, they are worlds apart.
Based on the UK’s largest observation study of pupils with high-level SEND, this book exposes how attendance at a mainstream school is no guarantee of receiving a mainstream education. Observations of nearly 1,500 lessons in English schools show that these students’ everyday experience of school is characterized by separation and segregation. Furthermore, interviews with nearly five hundred pupils, parents, and school staff reveal the effect of this marginalization on the quality of their education. The book argues that inclusion is an illusion. The way schools are organized and how classrooms are composed creates a form of structural exclusion that preserves mainstream education for typically developing pupils and justifies offering a diluted pedagogy for pupils with high-level SEND. Ultimately, the book suggests why a more authentic form of inclusion is needed, and how it might be achieved.
By conducting interviews with seven deaf children, ages seven to ten, Martha Sheridan offers a fresh look at their private thoughts and feelings in this watershed book. Each child possesses a unique cultural background, and Sheridan communicated with each in his or her preferred method of communication. Her procedure remained consistent with each: In addition to standard questions, Sheridan asked each child to draw a picture based on his or her life, then tell a story about it. Next, she showed them magazine pictures and asked them to describe what they saw.
The results proved to be as varied as they were engaging. Angie, an adopted deaf girl who communicates in Signed English, expressed a desire to attend a hearing college when she grows up while also stating she hoped her own children will be deaf. Joe, an African-American, hard of hearing boy, drew pictures of deaf people who are teased in a public school, reflecting his own difficult experiences.
Sheridan calls upon her tenure as a social worker as well as her own experience as a deaf child growing up in a hearing family in analyzing her study’s results. She writes, “These children have strengths, they have positive experiences, and they enjoy positive relationships.” Inner Lives of Deaf Children will prove to be an enlightening read for parents and scholars alike.
For the parents of thousands of deaf and hard of hearing children, this step-by-step guide offers hundreds of ideas and methods that work with children ages 3 to 12. It provides scores of play activities to help parents enhance communication, solve problems, and strengthen relationships in skillful, fun ways. Also, parenting techniques are concisely presented to help parents set limits while avoiding power struggles and help foster positive behavior changes. In addition, this manual provides information about special resources and support services.
At each chapter’s beginning, experts (some deaf, some hearing), including I. King Jordan, Jack Gannon, Merv Garretson, and others, offer their insights on the subject discussed. Designed for parents with various styles, Kid-Friendly Parenting is a complete, step-by-step guide and reference to raising a deaf or hard of hearing child.
In the modern world, success depends upon literacy, a fact especially true for deaf children who, if they read and write well, can take full advantage of e-mail, the Internet, and other communication innovations. Literacy and Your Deaf Child: What Every Parent Should Know provides parents with the means to ensure that their deaf or hard of hearing child becomes a proficient reader and writer. In nine chapters, parents will learn about the relationship of language to reading and writing, including the associated terminology, the challenges that deaf children face, and the role of schools. They’ll also learn activities that they can engage in at home that will strengthen their children’s reading and writing capabilities.
Literacy and Your Deaf Child begins by introducing some common concepts, among them the importance of parental involvement in a deaf child’s education. It outlines how children acquire language and describes the auditory and visual links to literacy. With this information, parents can make informed decisions regarding hearing aids, cochlear implants, speechreading, and sign communication, all of which can have a marked influence on their child’s language development. Parents will discover how to create environments at home and in their community for fostering their child’s literacy, especially in school by learning how to work closely with their child’s teachers. The book also refers throughout to the developmental link between American Sign Language and English literacy for children who use sign communication, making it the best guide available for all deaf children and their parents.
In 1983, Jane Bernstein had everything she ever wanted: a healthy four-year-old daughter, Charlotte; a happy marriage; a highly praised first novel; and a brand new baby, Rachel. But by the time Rachel was six weeks old,
a neuro-ophthalmologist told Jane and her husband that their baby was blind. Although there was some hope that Rachel might gain partial vision as she grew, her condition was one that often resulted in seizure disorders and intellectual impairment. So began a series of medical and emotional setbacks that were to plague Rachel and her parents and strain their marriage to the breaking point. Spanning the first four years of Rachel’s life, Loving Rachel is a heartbreaking chronicle of a marriage and a compelling story of parental love told with searing honesty and surprising humor.
To correct the paucity of information on deaf or hard of hearing children and their parents’ experiences with early intervention services, researchers explored these relationships as part of the National Parent Project. From this investigation, Parents and Their Deaf Children details the experiences of a group of parents and their deaf children from the first identification of the latter’s hearing loss through their early years in elementary school. Renowned scholars Kathryn Meadow-Orlans, Donna Mertens, and Marilyn Sass-Lehrer reveal here for the first time the goals and expectations of the parents, the children’s achievements and troubles, and the families’ satisfaction and disappointment with health and educational systems.
Parents and their Deaf Children stems from a nationwide survey of parents with six-to-seven-year-old deaf or hard of hearing children, followed up by interviews with 80 parents. The authors not only discuss the parents’ communication choices for their children, but also provide how parents’ experiences differ, especially for those whose children are hard of hearing, have additional conditions, or have cochlear implants. Also, one chapter is devoted to families from minority cultures. The final section of this distinctive study offers solid advice for other parents of deaf children and also the professionals who serve them.
Most importantly, parents will learn their roles in helping their child adjust to and successfully use the cochlear implant. The Parents’ Guide to Cochlear Implants emphasizes such critical subjects as learning to listen through home activities, implants as tools for language development, and critical issues regarding school placement. This encouraging book considers the implications for performance in light of the whole child, including issues related to Deaf culture and cochlear implants. The authors also include brief stories by parents whose children have had implants that provide reassuring actual experiences to parents considering the procedure for their own child. With a last word on parenting perspectives and a rich source of resources in the appendices, this one-of-a-kind guide will arm parents of deaf children with complete confidence to make informed decisions about cochlear implantation.
What happens when love is no longer enough? Jane Bernstein thought that learning to accept her daughter’s disabilities meant her struggles were over. But as Rachel grew up and needed more than a parent’s devotion, both mother and daughter were confronted with formidable obstacles. Rachel in the World, which begins in Rachel’s fifth year and ends when she turns twenty-two, tells of their barriers and successes with the same honesty and humor that made Loving Rachel, Bernstein’s first memoir, a classic in its field. The linked accounts in part 1 center on family issues, social services, experiences with caregivers, and Rachel herself--difficult, charming, hard to fathom, eager for her own independence. The second part of the book chronicles Bernstein’s attempt to find Rachel housing at a time when over 200,000 Americans with mental retardation were on waiting lists for residential services. As Rachel prepares to leave her mother’s constant protection, Bernstein invites the reader to share the frustrations and unexpected pleasures of finding a place for her daughter, first in her family, and then in the world.
Autism is a complex and incurable constellation of bizarre behaviors, impaired cognition, limited language, and most distressingly, a lack of responsiveness to other people, and it has been the center of impassioned debates for decades. What is it? What causes it? How can it be treated?
In The Science and Fiction of Autism, one of the country's leading experts in behavioral treatments approaches autism through the context of its controversies, showing where extraordinary and unfounded claims have falsely raised hopes, stirred fears, and ruined lives. Arguing that autism is an entirely biological disorder, however complex its neurological origins, Laura Schreibman lays waste to the beliefs that it is caused by "refrigerator mothers" or the MMR vaccine, as well as to the simplistic claims that it can be cured by a variety of unsubstantiated treatments.
Drawing from her own long clinical experience with autistic children and their parents, Schreibman arms her readers--students, educators, psychologists, and parents alike--with information and arguments to deal with the onslaught of good, bad, deficient, and irrelevant ideas about autism.
Authors Paul W. Ogden and David H. Smith, who are both deaf, present examples and research that guide parents through often unfamiliar territory. From coping mechanisms for parents to advice on creating healthy home environments, the authors cover a range of topics that impact day-to-day actions and decision-making. The topic of communication is discussed extensively as communication access and language development are crucial not only for intellectual growth, but also for positive family and social relationships. The authors look at American Sign Language, listening and spoken language, written English, and various other modes of communication available to deaf children. Different educational options are presented, and technology—including the debate about cochlear implants—is reviewed. Deaf children with special needs are considered here as well. Each topic is accompanied by real-life stories that offer further insight.
Always encouraging, The Silent Garden empowers parents to be the best advocates for their deaf children. Throughout, the authors emphasize that each choice is highly personal, and they stress that all deaf children have the potential to lead rich, productive, and exciting lives.
Also available in Spanish - El Jardín Silencioso: Una guía para los padres para criar a un niño sordo is a condensed Spanish edition that features the first five chapters of The Silent Garden. Topics covered include coping mechanisms for parents, creating healthy family environments, fostering independence, and understanding the perspectives of siblings.
Authors Paul W. Ogden and David H. Smith, who are both deaf, present examples and research that guide parents through often unfamiliar territory. From coping mechanisms for parents to advice on creating healthy home environments, the authors cover a range of topics that impact day-to-day actions and decision-making. The topic of communication is discussed extensively as communication access and language development are crucial not only for intellectual growth, but also for positive family and social relationships. The authors look at American Sign Language, listening and spoken language, written English, and various other modes of communication available to deaf children. Different educational options are presented, and technology—including the debate about cochlear implants—is reviewed. Deaf children with special needs are considered here as well. Each topic is accompanied by real-life stories that offer further insight.
Always encouraging, The Silent Garden empowers parents to be the best advocates for their deaf children. Throughout, the authors emphasize that each choice is highly personal, and they stress that all deaf children have the potential to lead rich, productive, and exciting lives.
Also available in Spanish - El Jardín Silencioso: Una guía para los padres para criar a un niño sordo is a condensed Spanish edition that features the first five chapters of The Silent Garden. Topics covered include coping mechanisms for parents, creating healthy family environments, fostering independence, and understanding the perspectives of siblings.
Twenty-Two Years presents the results of a unique longitudinal study of the first 22 years in the lives of more than 200 young people with varying degrees of mental retardation. By following their paths through available services, job histories, leisure activities, friendships, and marriages, the authors provide objective information about the quality of life of young people with mental retardation.
The book makes a unique contribution by determining what factors in childhood predict who will and who will not require mental retardation services and, for those who disappear from services, why some fare better than others. Most important, the results help answer a question that haunts parents: "What will happen when my child grows up?"
This study expands on an internationally acclaimed clinical and epidemiological study of children with mental retardation published in 1970. It provides prevalence rates by severity of mental retardation, gender, social class, and family stability, and shows how these change over time.
The authors confirm the central role of biomedical factors in the etiology of severe mental retardation. For the etiology of mild mental retardation, the book examines the relative contributions of biomedical and intergenerational genetic factors as well as psychosocial adversity. The book should be of interest to a broad range of clinicians, researchers, and students, as well as the families of people with mental retardation, and it will serve as a model for future epidemiological and follow-up research.
In this poignant and startlingly original book, Brian Doyle examines the heart as a physical organ—how it is supposed to work, how surgeons try to fix it when it doesn’t—and as a metaphor: the seat of the soul, the power house of the body, the essence of spirituality. In a series of profoundly moving ruminations, Doyle considers the scientific, emotional, literary, philosophical, and spiritual understandings of the heart—from cardiology to courage, from love letters and pop songs to Jesus. Weaving these strands together is the torment of Doyle’s own infant son’s heart surgery and the inspiring story of the young heart doctor who saved Liam’s life.
The Wet Engine is a book that will change how you feel and think about the mysterious, fragile human heart. This new paperback edition includes a foreword by Dr. Marla Salmon, dean of the University of Washington School of Nursing.
You and Your Deaf Child is a guide for parents of deaf or hard of hearing children that explores how parents and their children interact. It examines the special impact of having a deaf child in the family.
Eleven chapters focus on such topics as feelings about hearing loss, the importance of communication in the family, and effective behavior management. Many chapters contain practice activities and questions to help parents retain skills taught in the chapter and check their grasp of the material. Four appendices provide references, general resources, and guidelines for evaluating educational programs.
Once parents have worked through You and Your Deaf Child, this friendly guide can be referred to for specific information and advice as different situations arise.
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