Following are resources that teachers of special needs students may find helpful.
Elementary School.
Mainstreaming Special Students: A Shared Responsibility. This 50-minute video helps teachers face the challenge of integrating children with special learning difficulties into the elementary school classroom. It suggests roles for teachers’ aides, peer teachers, and special consultants; discusses cooperative learning and adaptive equipment; and demonstrates how one school is responding to the challenge. Cost: $22.20. (Maine residents add 6 percent sales tax.) Contact: American Institute for Creative Education, 23 University Drive, Augusta, ME 04330; (800) 448-5343.
Teaching Methods.
Commonsense Methods for Children with Special Needs. Offering practical advice and basic strategies for introducing students with learning disabilities into a regular classroom setting, author Peter Westwood, a senior lecturer in special education at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, builds on the premise that teaching children with special needs simply requires a strengthening of basic teaching methods. His 224-page paperback also addresses behavior management and curriculum adaptation. Cost: $16.95. Contact: Routledge, 29 W. 35th St., New York, NY 10001; (212) 268-9964.
Overcoming Limits
Helping Children Overcome Learning Difficulties. Author Dr. Jerome Rosner, a optometric researcher who has linked learning difficulties to vision problems, offers ways to accommodate children with learning disabilities in the home and classroom. The 298-page book also discusses how the different labels applied to students with learning disabilities can in themselves create limits. Cost: $18.95. Contact: Walker and Co.; (800) 289-2553.
Comprehensive Resource.
The Special Education Sourcebook: A Teacher’s Guide to Programs, Materials, and Information Sources. This 352-page book, written by Michael Rosenberg, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, and Irene Edmond-Rosenberg, an instructor at Baltimore City College, provides a comprehensive resource for teachers of students with disabilities. Sections of the book identify the characteristics, causes, and treatments of specific disabilities and present ways teachers can address them in the classroom. An index of related books, periodicals, and multimedia materials is also included. Cost: $21.95. Contact: Woodbine House, 5615 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20852; (800) 843-7323.
Bibliography.
Portraying Persons with Disabilities. Issued by Reed Reference Publishing, this two-volume bibliography lists books that promote acceptance and understanding of those with disabilities. One volume highlights fiction, the other nonfiction. Each guide starts with chapters on selection criteria, historical trends, and related reference materials. Cost: $39.95 for the bibliography of fiction; $34.95 for the nonfiction edition. Contact: Reed, 121 Chanlon Road, New Providence, NJ 07974; (800) 521-8110.
Medical Primer.
Children with Disabilities: A Medical Primer. Appropriate for parents, educators, and others who work with children with learning disabilities, this 688-page resource book provides information on all types of disabilities and traces their course of development. Authors Dr. Mark Batshaw and Yvonne Perret provide detailed illustrations, charts and graphs, case studies, a glossary, and appendices. Cost: $28. Contact: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., P.O. Box 10624, Baltimore, MD 21285-0624; (800) 638-3775.
Challenging Myths.
Everyone is Able: Exploding the Myth of Learning Disabilities. Drawing on true stories provided by parents and specialists, this 15-page booklet challenges some of the prevailing ideas about learning disabilities and suggests ways to help children with difficulties learn. It also includes a section that defines commonly used LD jargon. Cost: $3.95, plus $2.50 shipping and handling. (Massachusetts residents add 5 percent sales tax.) Contact: John Holt’s Book and Music Store, 2269 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02140; (617) 864-3100.
A Family’s Story.
Trouble with School. In this 32page paperback, a mother, Kathryn Dunn, and her daughter, Allison, who is learning disabled, tell how their family learned to handle Allison’s disability. They discuss the initial diagnosis and the decisions, adjustments, and problems they faced. Cost: $9.95. Contact: Woodbine House, 5615 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20852; (800) 8437323.
Advice for Teenagers.
The Survival Guide for Teenagers with LD (Learning Differences). Authors Rhoda Cummings and Gary Fisher, both educators at the University of Nevada at Reno, address the questions and concerns of secondary school students with learning disabilities. Offering both school and life skills, the 200-page paperback discusses a wide range of topics, including career planning, after school jobs, dating, and legal rights. Cost: $11.95. Contact: Free Spirit Publishing, 400 First Ave. N., Suite 616, Minneapolis, MN 55401; (800) 735-7323.
College Guide.
The K&W Guide to Colleges for the Learning Disabled. This 459-page paperback guidebook describes resources and programs available for students with learning disabilities at more than 200 colleges nationwide. Included are application information, costs, graduation requirements, and advice from the director of admissions and a recent graduate. The book also lists names and phone numbers of an additional 550 colleges. Cost: $20. Contact: HarperPerennial, Scranton Warehouse, 1000 Keystone Industrial Park, Scranton, PA 18512-4621; (800) 331-3761.
A True Experience.
The Child Who Never Grew. Pulitzer-prize winning author Pearl Buck recounts the true experience of a mother dealing with a severely retarded daughter. Originally published in 1950, when few such resources existed, the book has been reissued with a foreword by author James Michener and an introductory essay that reviews the history of mental retardation and explains how this book broke cultural taboos on the subject. Cost: $14.95. Contact: Woodbine House, 5615 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20852; (800) 843-7323.
Hearing Difficulties.
Children with Hearing Difficulties. In this 192-page paperback, authors Alec Webster and David Wood examine the impact of deafness on the development and education of young children. Based on 10 years of research on children with hearing impairments, the book is specifically written with the needs of nonspecialist teachers in mind. Cost: $21.50. Contact: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., P.O. Box 10624, Baltimore, MD 21285-0624; (800) 638-3775.
