Customer Reviews

A Parent's Guide to Special Education: Insider Advice on How to Navigate the System and Help Your Child Succeed

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3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
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I certainly recommend this book. I have learned a lot in the first half of the book alone and look forward to reading the rest of it. Now that my son receives special education services, I think this book will help me to prepare for the next school year. I agree with the other reviewer -- if Amazon included the Table of Contents on this page, they'd probably sell a lot more books. I will include it here and I hope you find it helpful.

Chapter 1: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004: What a Great IDEA!
Chapter 2: Not All Roads Lead to Special Education Placement: The 411 on 504 Plans
Chapter 3: A Comparison of IDEA 2004 and Section 504, and a Brief Look at No Child Left Behind.
Chapter 4: The Psychological Assessment: What to Expect
Chapter 5: The Assessment of Intelligence
Chapter 6: The Other Psychological Assessments: Achievement Testing, Process Testing and Emotional/ Behavioral Assessments
Chapter 7: Understanding Your Child's Disability
Chapter 8: Labels: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Chapter 9: You and Me and the IEP
Chapter 10: Beyond Eligibility for Special Education: What's Next?
Chapter 11: A Parent's Guide to Parent-Teacher Communication and School Meetings
Chapter 12: A Parent's Guide to Stress and Coping
Chapter 13: A Parent's Guide to Building Your Child's Self-Esteem and Increasing Social Competence
Chapter 14: A Parent's Guide to Behavior and Discipline
Appendix A: Selected Changes in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004
Appendix B: Sample 504 Plans
Appendix C: Sample Behavior Charts
Appendix D: Procedural Safeguards
Appendix E: Sample IEP Forms
Appendix F: Food for Thought: Helpful Resources
Glossary: Acronyms 101

I saw this book in my local B&N and thought it was very comprehensive. I found the updated information on IDEA 2004 to be of most help and in no other book since the law doesn't go into effect until next month. Since the federal law is updated only every 5 or 10 years, it's important for me, a special education parent advocate, to keep up with everything that affects my clients. This book will definitely help me to do that. I really like the variety of chapters. I just wish Amazon would post the sample table of contents since I will definitely recommend this book to parents and often refer them to Amazon's site when I think a book will help them. I'm hoping Amazon will consider doing this in the near future.

Like the other reviewers, I found this book quite helpful. My grandson was diagnosed as having a learning disability and I bought this book for my daughter. I read it first because sometimes I go to meetings for her if she cannot get off from work. The book has some very helpful information. I told my daughter to bring this book to the first meeting she has this next school year so that the school staff knows that she has read up on the topic. We'll have to see if it makes a difference since she sometimes gets the run-around. Anyway, I would recommend this book to parents (and grandparents!) of a child who is in special education.

I'm glad this book just came out. My daughter began receiving special education services just after Spring Break and my wife and I were a bit scared about the whole process. I ordered this book recently and it's already come in handy. The acronyms section was helpful since Lauren's teachers often throw them around, forgetting that we are brand new to special education. IMHO, it's definitely a book worth buying.

Excellent support book that is well organized, detailed and cataloged. In preparation for meetings with schools, this book is a must! This book provides a parent's 'silent advocate' packed full of knowledge often hard to find. A parent can maximize his/hers ability to fully represent his/her child and ultimately better provide for their son/daughter's educational future.

Special education embraces a host of different learning challenges, from developmental delays and disabilities to emotional problems, language impairment, and more: with all these conflicting needs present, it becomes a challenge to assess and run a special education program for all. Parents receive help and guidance to programs and administrators in A Parent's Guide To Special Education: Insider Advice On How To Navigate The System And Help Your Child Succeed. Here are discussions of the special education process, its place and role in the overall educational system, and how intelligence is assessed. Chapters on what to expect from special education and where it can fail, parent-teacher communications and meetings, and issues beyond basic eligibility determinations provide plenty of clear insights.

I agree with the other reviewers who said this book was a good resource for them in their quest to understand special education. I learned a lot from this book, and I especially liked the "Parent's Guide" chapters. We found them to be quite helpful. This information has helped me to better understand how schools work.

My school recommended this book to me, and I'm glad they did. I have found most of the chapters are very helpful. This book even includes information on the new special education law that went in effect in July 2005. It impacts the type of services my child gets, so I'm really happy that I purchased this book and not another one.

I got this book for Christmas and have read about half the book. I have skipped around reading things that interested me the most and have found the book to be very helpful. I am hoping to finish the book before my daughter returns to school next week. The book gives a lot of good tips and advice about working with the schools to get what you want. The new law information doesn't really interest me that much but I know I need to read it because the schools know it and I don't. The book is well written and easy to read and it is very positive toward children with disabilities.

This book is among the best for helping parents learn how to advocate for their children. Written in simple, direct language, it thoroughly explains the special education process- from referral through evaluation and placement/educational planning. The "did you know" boxes introjected at various points in the book are especially helpful.

As a psychologist who specializes in working with children and the schools, I highly recommend this book for both parents and professionals. It is an immense resource for parents who are learning to navigate the special education system. It would take many sessions working with families to impart all the knowledge contained succinctly in this reference.

Kudos to the authors for a job well done!