Customer Reviews

The Child With Special Needs: Encouraging Intellectual and Emotional Growth (A Merloyd Lawrence Book)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the one book to get if you have a child with special needs. I cannot state enough how wonderful this book is in helping your child grow and develop above and beyond their current level, not just incrementally, but in leaps and bounds! I have a daughter with autism and first I tried the Behavioral books, such as "Behavioral Intervention for Young Children with Autism" along with all the other books based on the Lovaas Method and the Behavioral Model of teaching which is shaping behavior step-by-step using reinforcers (just how Pavlov got a dog to ring a bell for food or how, in my Psychology class, I got a pigeon to peck a red dot for food) I tried the Lovaas method for one year, also called ABA or Applied Behavioral Analysis, and my child did not progress in her development. She was also enrolled in an Early Start class and was getting speech therapy. Finally I bought Dr. Greenspan's book when my daughter turned 3, one year after her diagnosis. I only wish I found this book earlier! This is based on the Developmental approach to learning. It is full of hope, not false hope like dietary cures, but real hope based on real methods that are simple to learn, make a lot of sense and are based on how children actually learn. It really makes perfect sense when you read it: Play with your child, keep an interaction going, keep them actively engaged, block them from self-stimulating or hiding into their own world, keep them interacting with you. This is a lot of work, but it is natural and rewarding and you can do it yourself without training. You do not have to do this all day long. Dr. Greenspan recommends several 30-minute sessions of "Floortime" each day. Do not believe the bad reviews on this book that say something like, "If your child flaps their arms, flap with them." I kept away from this book for one year based on such reviews, but that is not how it is at all! This book is empowering and enlightening. Dr. Greenspan's entire premise is based on this: Although your child is disabled, they can learn and grow way beyond any level you could imagine for them or any teacher could vision for them, by having high expectations and not limiting them based on their label. Yes it is work, but with a little effort on your part, your child can really improve and learn self-help skills to become an independent adult. That is the goal for all children with special needs and it's not easy to get them there, but for most all children it is doable with work, time and attention and high expectations that it can and will happen! Dr. Greenspan does not throw out the Behavioral approach of Lovaas at all- he even states that for some children both approaches are necessary to learning, he has an entire chapter on this. Each child is unique and each child needs an approach tailored to what works best for that child. For my daughter, Greenspan's approach really works and after using this method for several months, she is now enrolled in an integrated Preschool with mostly typically developed children- Something she never could have achieved without the Greenspan approach!

When my wife and I first felt that our daughter had serious developmental issues, we panicked. My daughter was 3 at that time and was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified(PDD NOS). Days later a librarian helped me choose this book. I read the book, re read it many times and applied it to interact with my daughter.
After nearly two years of applying the principles and techniques discussed in this book, we turned our daughter around a full 180 degrees.
She is now very intentional, joyful, creative, spontaneous, logical, friendly and natural. What were some of her major issues are now her strengths. She still has a few minor issues and they are being addressed.
Our main intervention has been Dr. Greenspan's Floortime model. Most of the caregivers and professionals of my daughter were educated in the Floortime principles.
This book must be considered a great tool for providing intervention to special needs kids both at home and in the classroom. This intervention is very demanding of a parent's time and mind but worth every bit of it. We had a great psychologist that helped us apply the intervention.
Contrary to what another reviewer said, this intervention is not easy. You need a lot of patience, determination, mental energy to understand your child and apply the intervention for her individual needs.
Stanley Greenspan and Serena Weider created a masterpiece. This is a must read for anyone with a special needs child.

This hefty resource is informative, insightful and, most of all, inspirational--giving parents a way to reach children who often seem so unreachable. In addition to the very concrete instructions on how to do Floor Time, it provides a wealth of information on the emotional development and behavioral challenges of neurologically impaired children. Dr. Greenspan is well-known and well-respected in special-education circles, so if you, like me, are the kind of parent who is constantly copying passages of favorite books to give to teachers and Child Study Team members, know that the material here will get their attention. Only one quibble: How are parents with challenging children supposed to find the time to read a book as big and information-packed as this one? All the same, it's well worth the effort. Who needs sleep, anyway?

There is no book on PDD/Autism that has meant more to our daughter's life. Though Greenspan is an M.D. the writing style of this text is very readable (probably due to Wieder !) and is full of stories and examples of children who have made dramatic gains after initial developmental delays. The diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorders is still very vague and leaves parents feeling unsure of what to do next. This book allowed me to explain to our therapists what kind of interventions, and what kind of childhood, I wanted for my daughter. She is making wonderful gains and I am very thankful I found this book.

Early in the book Dr. Greenspan described 3 components typically involved in develomentally delayed children: sensory input, sensory processing, and motor planning. This was the first time I had seen in print a description of exactly what seemed to be affecting my son. We have never had a diagnosis for him so I also appreciate that the book does not get bogged down in labelling a child. The developmental path that he suggests a child must follow gave us a fairly clear "map" to follow. Excellent book.

Buy this one! Our daughter was recently diagnosed with a developmental disorder and this book is just a wonderful resource, particularly for the period just after diagnosis, when parents are scrambling to find the right treatment options and at a loss for what to do. After reading this book, we felt suddenly empowered to begin working with our daughter, even though we don't yet have our full team in place. We realized that we were doing all the wrong things with the best of intentions, often making our interactions with her frustrating on both sides. The floor time descriptions and techniques have really helped us interact with our sometimes withdrawn and difficult child and even better, really enjoy the time we spend playing and working with her.

Although the strategies in this book are definately time consuming, it is all completely worth it when your child makes a communication breakthrough. My daughter went to a pre school where the teachers followed the methods outlined in this book, and the students (who were all autistic or language learning disabled) left able to function in a regular education environment. I strongly recommend that parents follow the guidelines in this book, it will make a world of difference for your child.

If you have a special needs child, please, please, please read this book. Greenspan's philosophy defies the tradition of standardized treatment programs and teaches parents to assess their child individually, then build on his specific strengths. His theory that constant, intensive intervention, in which the caregiver follows the child's lead and challenges him through his own emotions and desires, has revolutionized our son with PDD.

This book is the only work I have found that believes parents can actually do something about developmental delays, beyond helping their child to reach a predisposed "ceiling". It also explained many of the ambiguities relating to pervasive development and sensory disorders that had baffled us (and the professionals we work with) for many months.

I also recommend highly: The Out-of-Sync child by Carol Kranowitz (about sensory integration disorder) and Biological Treatments for PDD and Autism by Dr. William Shaw (an excellent resource on nutritional and vitamin issues)

As a clinician I have read many books on special needs children and I was particularly impressed with this book. The tone is positive, pro-active and gives parents concrete things they can do in order to meet their children exactly where they are. Also, no other books describes the symptoms of many syndromes with such clarity, so that parents and therapists can work with empathy and vision. For some situations, additional therapy modalities may be necessary and this may feel too "light," but taken as, at the very least, an adjunct to whatever therapy is given, this book is just top notch. I can't rate it highly enough. For ... .

I don't think this book is junk at all! This program can be done at home by parents as well as by professionals. I don't need to fork out lots of money to therapists to do the program. I use his toys and natural activities that occur through out the day to apply the Floor time model. The activities in the book are wonderful for my PDD/language delayed son. He is too high functioning for ABA and I wanted to find ways I could help him. Before I read the book, I felt so helpless. Dr. Greenspan empowered me to help my child and look for hope in our situation!