Child and Family Advocacy: If You Don’t Know, You Better Ask Somebody by Steven R. Isham, 2007. 

This single volume includes a ton of “need to know” information for families and for those who help them maneuver the maze of disability systems. Isham concentrates on school-aged children and covers everything from ethics to funding to conflict resolution to document management. The appendix alone provides a wealth of resources including the parental rights provisions of IDEA special education law as revised in 2004 as well as an invaluable list of acronyms for parents.

Available from Trafford Publishing

The Mislabeled Child: How Understanding Your Child’s Unique Learning Style Can Open the Door to Success by Brock Eide and Fernette Eide, 2007.

The authors are founders of the Eide Neurolearning Clinic in Edmonds, Washington, and specialize in teasing out the exact components of a child’s learning patterns so that each child’s unique strengths can be used to overcome learning obstacles. In the book, they devote space to every learning variation from memory differences and attention problems to dysgraphia and math problems. They even deal with the learning challenges of gifted children. Their book would be valuable to diagnosticians, educators, and parents alike.

Available from Hyperion Books

Parenting with Positive Behavior Support: A Practical Guide to Resolving Your Child’s Difficult Behavior by Meme Hieneman, Karen Childs, & Jane Sergay, 2006.

Positive Behavior Support (PBS) is the latest school movement for managing behavior, and these authors have adapted the PBS model for home use. The authors help parents identify problem behaviors, set priorities, and develop support plans by understanding their child’s patterns.  The overall goal of using PBS is to prevent problems before they happen, teach new skills, and respond effectively when behavior moves toward being “out of control.” The authors’ inclusion of lots of case studies and mini-exercises make the theories easy to understand and implementation easy to plan.

Available from Brookes Publishing Company

The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal by Jonathan Mooney, 2007.

Here’s your chance to careen around the country with the national speaker and author of Learning Outside the Lines. Looking to make sense of his painful experiences as a special education student turned Ivy League graduate, Mooney travels around the country on a battered old yellow school bus seeking out the kids and adults who are trying to survive their labels. He visits some very odd and endearing adults—and some very brave kids. On the way, Mooney challenges the school world’s concepts of “normal” as well as society’s (and his own) prejudices as he redefines what it means to be a valuable person. You’ll laugh and cringe and maybe even cry, but you won’t soon forget The Short Bus. If you love a kid, teach a kid, or work with a kid, you’ll want to read this book.

Available from Henry Holt and Company, LLC

The Tiny Titan by Ann Yurcek, 2006.

This book, the 2007 winner of the Adult Nonfiction Mom’s Choice Award, is the self-published story of an inspiring family. While the book could use a good editor (a fact the author cheerfully acknowledged when I met her recently), it is well worth the read. While raising five children, Ann and Jim gave birth to a tiny, medically fragile girl they named Becca. It took all the family’s money, patience, determination, and fighting spirit to keep Becca alive in spite of a medical system that seemed to have no time for them. After learning their way around the medical system, Becca’s parents decided to adopt five more children, a sibling group affected by fetal alcohol exposure.  The family quickly realized that the skills they developed while navigating the medical maze would come in handy as they advocated for their children in both the educational and the mental health systems.

In person Ann and Jim are calm, friendly, and impassioned about the world they have created out of chaos and love. When Ann travels to speak about FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder) or attends a book signing, her pride in the young adults she and Jim have raised is visible. And her pride is well-justified. Here’s just one example of their children’s accomplishments: for years, their children invested hundreds of hours in developing the Backpack Project, which they began when they realized how many children began school with nothing of their own. First they collected donated backpacks and filled them in their living room. By last summer, they had to rent a warehouse to store and sort all of the donated bags and supplies.

When you need to find the energy to write another letter, attend another meeting, or explain your child one more time, read Tiny Titan.

Available from Better Endings New Beginnings