The Achievement Test Desk Reference: Comprehensive Assessment and Learning Disabilities

This anthology of poetry is organized to show the experience of a person who takes charge of her own life despite difficulties and challenges. Fifty-three poems and three short stories describe the experience of growing up. The author, a women who wrote these poems during her childhood and teenage years, experienced a difference currently called by many names; specific learning disabilities, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and dylexia. She was in an ordinary class and received virtually no help for the challenges she experienced due to her handicaps.The poetry was published in journals of poetry, newspapers, and magazines when she was a teenager. Mountain Books asked the author to organize these poems into an anthology because the publisher believed they should be shared with today’s readers. They inspire and emmpower all people who have stuggled to overcome these difficulties. They sensitize parents and teachers who work to help children and adults who struggle. They show personal growth and encourage the reader to take responsibility for their own actions and experiences.

This updated comprehensive guide addresses revisions to federal and state discrimination laws, includes educational options that are available to students with learning disabilities, and describes the pros and cons of various therapies.

Organized according to the sequence mental health professionals follow when conducting an assessment, Groth-Marnat’s Handbook of Psychological Assessment, Sixth Edition covers principles of assessment, evaluation, referral, treatment planning, and report writing. Written in a practical, skills-based manner, the Sixth Edition provides guidance on the most efficient methods for selecting and administering tests, interpreting assessment data, how to integrate test scores and develop treatment plans as well as instruction on ways to write effective, client-oriented psychological reports.

This text provides through coverage of the most commonly used assessment instruments including the Wechsler Intelligence Scales, Wechsler Memory Scales, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Personality Assessment Inventory, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory, NEO Personality, Rorschach, Thematic Apperception Test, and brief assessment instruments for treatment planning, monitoring, and outcome assessment.

Besides being a football coach at his Michigan High School, Mike Kersjes taught special education classes, dealing with children whose disabilities included Tourette syndrome, Downs Syndrome, dyslexia, eating disorders and a variety of emotional problems. One autumn Kersjes got the outlandish idea that his students would benefit from going to Space Camp, where, in conjunction with NASA, high school students compete in a variety of activities similar to those experienced by astronauts in training for space shuttle missions. There was only one problem: this program had been specifically designed for gifted and talented students, the best and the brightest from America’s most privileged high schools. Kersjes believed that, given a chance, his kids could do as well as anybody, and with remarkable persistence broke down one barrier after another, from his own principal’s office to the inner sanctum of NASA, until Space Camp opened its doors, on an experimental basis, to special ed students. After nine months of rigorous preparation, during which the class molded itself into a working team, they arrived at Space Camp, where they turned in a performance so startling, so surprising, that it will leave the reader breathless. A truly triumphant story of the power of the human spirit.

If you are a parent of a child with special needs, perhaps you have also felt lost and wished you knew someone in a similar situation you could turn to for support. If so, you’re not alone. Across the country, parents are providing emotional and informational support to other parents through a national network of Parent to Parent programs. In this comprehensive book, the authors share with you the ins and outs of developing and maintaining a strong, local Parent to Parent program that individually matches “veteran” supporting parents with those who are new to the challenges of caring for a child with a disability. Drawing on research about Parent to Parent groups and best practices in program development and training, you’ll get the basics of setting up your own program, including guidelines for finding, preparing, and matching supporting parents with newly referred parents, ideas for organizing and incorporating your program, and evaluating its effectiveness, tips on accessing funding and promoting your program througho0ut the community, and useful forms and extensive lists of contacts and resources to get you started.

This is the definitive source for information on learning disabilities. Get new information about federal mandates, teaming, transitioning, and involving parents. You’ll also have a thorough discussion of the social and emotional aspects of LD and a glossary of terms. Get well-organized information about five major disabilities: communication disorders, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and attention deficit disorder (ADD). For each of the five disabilities, you’ll have: definitions, characteristic charts, screening checklists, intervention tips and strategies, and a comprehensive list of resources.