The Achievement Test Desk Reference: Comprehensive Assessment and Learning Disabilities

Until the 1960s a learning disability was a hidden handicap wearing many guises and treated ineffectively. Today, shows the author, founder of the unique Lab School in Washington, D.C., and herself the parent of a learning-disabled child, there is growing evidence that such difficulties can be either overcome or modified by teaching strategies that address the student’s specific strengths. The stories of adults—some of them celebrities like Cher, who suffered from undiagnosed dyslexia—who coped with learning problems throughout their school days illustrate the depths of the disability said to afflict more than 25 million Americans. Distilling her experiences with learning-disabled students, their parents and teachers, Smith demonstrates that a variety of approaches to learning can yield later career success, thus offering hope to children and adults so burdened.

This anthology is comprised of two major components: thirteen full-length, autobiographical essays written by persons with learning disabilities and five analytical chapters written by education and psychology scholars. Speaking in terms alternately intimate and analytical, the autobiographical essays each tell of a sustained personal encounter with the challenges and mysteries of living with a learning disability. But these autobiographies are not merely personal, concerned solely with their writers’ private lives. Rather, they are also in various ways consciously analytical, offering astute critical readings of culture and society. The scholarly essays are written by such noted educators and psychologists as Lisa Delpit, Robert Kegan, and Janet Lerner. For any educator or parent of students with learning disabilities.

Christopher Lee was the author’s student at The University of Georgia, and Faking It: A Look Into the Mind of a Creative Learner is the story of his struggle to come to terms with learning disabilities. Using modifications and accommodations and putting in lots of hard work, Christopher graduated in 1990, and this book was published in 1992. Christopher looked forward to graduating because he thought his major struggles with LD would end with school. However, he quickly realized that the world of work offered a whole new array of challenges. He has spent the last eight years reframing his disability into something positive and has learned how to use assistive technology to compensate for problems with reading, writing and spelling in the workplace.

There are a ton of books that offer child-rearing advice, and only a few less that describe research on childhood emotional and learning problems; this is one of the few books that combines the two. Edward Hallowell brings readers into his consultation rooms to meet his clients — and the descriptions and dialogue are effective in bringing the situations to life. When You Worry About the Child You Love will help you understand why your child is unhappy or underachieving, will help you help your child to manage her emotions, and perhaps most important, will help parents do what they can and stop blaming themselves.

An engaging must-read for any parent, educator, or counselor of smart kids who face learning difficulties. The authors, who have more than 20 years experience working with and advocating for gifted and learning diabled children, provide useful, practical advice for helping smart kids with learning challenges succeed in school.

With Faking It, Christopher Lee and Rosemary Jackson offered a moving account of Lee’s struggle and ultimate triumph over dyslexia. Now, Lee combines his special insight with Jackson’s expertise as a special education trainer to offer specific help to teachers and parents of other misunderstood learners.