List Books » It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend: Helping the Child with Learning Disabilities Find Social Success
Authors: Richard Lavoie, Mel Levine (Foreword by), Rob Reiner (Preface by), Michele Reiner
ISBN-13: 9780743254656, ISBN-10: 0743254651
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
Date Published: October 2006
Edition: Reprint
Richard Lavoie, M.A., M.Ed., has worked as a teacher and headmaster at residential special education facilities for the past thirty years. He holds three degrees in special education and serves as a consultant to several agencies and organizations. The father of three adult children, he lives with his wife in Barnstable, Massachusetts. He welcomes visitors to his website at www.ricklavoie.com
As any parent, teacher, coach, or caregiver of a learning disabled child knows, every learning disability has a social component. The ADD child constantly interrupts conversations and doesn't follow directions. The child with visual-spatial issues loses his belongings and causes his siblings to be late to school. The child with paralinguistic difficulties appears stiff and wooden because she fails to gesture when she talks. These children are socially out of step with their classmates and peers, and often they are ridiculed or ostracized for their differences. A successful social life is immeasurably important to a child's happiness, health, and development, but until now, no book has provided practical, expert advice on helping learning disabled children achieve social success.
For more than thirty years, Richard Lavoie has lived with and taught learning disabled children. His bestselling PBS videos, including How Difficult Can This Be?: The F.A.T. City Workshop, and his sellout lectures and workshops have made him one of the most popular and respected experts in the field. At last, Rick's pioneering techniques for helping children achieve a happy and successful social life are available in book form.
It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend offers practical strategies to help learning disabled children ages six through seventeen navigate the treacherous social waters of their school, home, and community. Rick examines the special social issues surrounding a wide variety of learning disabilities, including ADD and other attentional disorders, anxiety, paralinguistics, visual-spatial disorders, and executive functioning. Then he provides proven methods andstep-by-step instructions for helping the learning disabled child through almost any social situation, including choosing a friend, going on a playdate, conducting a conversation, reading body language, overcoming shyness and low self-esteem, keeping track of belongings, living with siblings, and adjusting to new settings and situations.
Perhaps the most important component of this book is the author's compassion. It comes through on every page that Rick feels the intensity with which children long for friends and acceptance, the exasperation they can cause in others, and the joy they feel in social connection. It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend answers the most intense yet, until now, silent need of the parents, teachers, and caregivers of learning disabled children -- or anyone who is associated with a child who needs a friend.
Getting in GoodDr. Mel Levine
Preface
Rob and Michele Reiner
Introduction: "The Other Sixteen Hours"
Part One Why Do They Do the Things They Do?: The Impact of Learning Disorders on the Development of Social Skills
One Children with Learning Disorders Are Wired Differently: It's All in Their HeadsTwo Anxiety: A Cause and Consequence of Social Isolation
Three Language Difficulties: Getting and Giving the Message
Four Paralinguistics: Words Carry the Message, Body Language Carries the Emotion
Five Attention Deficit Disorder: The Social Lives of the Unhappy Wanderers
Part Two Social Skills on the Homefront: Dealing with Parents, Siblings, and Other Strangers
Six Enhancing Organizational Skills: Bringing Order and Structure to the Disorganized ChildSeven Siblings and Other Strangers
Eight Playdates: The Social Coin of the Realm
Part Three Social Skills at School: Reading, 'Riting, 'Rithmetic, and Relationships
Nine Bullies, Victims, and Spectators: Strategies to Prevent Teasing, Intimidation, and Harassment in SchoolTen Mastering the Hidden Curriculum of School: The Unwritten, Unspoken Rules
Eleven Teacher-Pleasing Behaviors: Polishing the Apple
Part Four Social Skills in the Community: No Kid Is an Island
Twelve Appropriate Social Skills in Public PlacesThirteen Meeting, Making, and Keeping Friends
Conclusion
Appendix
Index