Customer Reviews

Smart but Stuck: How Resilience Frees Imprisoned Intelligence from Learning Disabilities

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Myrna Orenstein's superbly presented work in Smart But Stuck covers the emotional aspects of learning disabilities: a topic often omitted from coverages which focus on physical development. From clues pointing to possible learning disabilities to treatment and therapies, Smart But Stuck provides excellent background and advice.

I actually wept through many parts of this book, as I saw the truth of my own experience described in its pages. The notion of undiagnosed learning disabilities, the "chasm", and "imprisoned intelligence" were ways to organize the previously indecipherable, chaotic jumble of my feelings, relentless feelings of humiliation, and hopelessness that wrecked my marriage, disabled my graduate studies efforts, and made my life a hell on earth. Once I saw my experiences in the light of "imprisoned intelligence", I found a plethora of ways to adapt to my learning disabilities in healthy ways, and thus begin to find more successful adaptations to daily problems, intellectual stagnation, and emotional satisfaction. I thought my life was over, a failure, my fraudulent self exposed to the world. Now, life is newly exciting, and problems are there to be solved, learning disabilities taken into compassionate consideration, and the joys of life returning. If you think this is too dramatic a description, you haven't been part of the learning disabled world.

This is an excellent text for anyone wanting to understand learning disorders and the negative impact that social misunderstandings about the disorders have on those who struggle with them. This is a book of hope. Recommended highly for persons wanting to understand their learning disorder, anyone who knows someone who suffers with a learning disorder, and the professional community that wants to help them. This is a practical text, as well as a scholarly piece of work.