The winner of this giveaway is comment #2: Randominities!

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This is book review was originally published here on able2able last November and is being republished as part of the Best of the Best Edition 5, $1100 Giveaway Bonanza blog carnival organized by Danette of S-O-S Research in honor of Autism Awareness Month.

Why am I reviewing a book about caring for physically involved children for an Autism Awareness blog carnival? Because Autism doesn't care. It doesn't care if your child already faces physical, medical, intellectual, or mental health challenges. The term is dual diagnosis.  My Clara-Bear has a dual diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder and Down Syndrome.

Autism doesn't care, but people do. They personally or professionally show the world they care by supporting Autism research, supporting families dealing with ASD related issues, and most, importantly, by supporting individuals with ASD.  Caring people give families hope and individuals with ASD a future. Thank you for caring!





Clara-Bear's extreme prematurity, Congenital Heart Defect, possible infant stroke, and Down Syndrome placed her at high risk for developmental delays. We were blessed that Baby-Bear's home-based Early Intervention services started as soon as she was medically stable.

Our Developmental Pediatrician was willing to prescribe the necessary Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, and Physical Therapy. Our largest blessing at the time was Brandi, a TEIS Parent Advisor who did a great job teaching us to approach Baby Bear's multiple therapy needs in a way that encouraged bonding and social development. We know that not every family of a developmentally delayed child shares these blessings.

You and Your Disabled Child: A Practical Guide for Parents by Margaret Barrett (2010, Woodfield Publishing) is a book for parents whose infants or young children are at risk for developmental delays or have been diagnosed with developmental delays. Read this book if you are unable to take full advantage of Early Childhood Intervention services in your area or if you are not satisfied with the services provided. Even those who enjoy the blessing of appropriate Early Childhood Intervention services should dd to your reading list.

As your child’s first teacher, home-based therapist, private nurse, and strongest cheerleader, you are the one best qualified to tie all the specialists and therapists together. Their goals are based on your child’s developmental and medical needs, but your goals come from your heart.

No one knows your child like you. It’s your love and understanding of the person your child is and your vision of the person you want your child to be that transforms therapy interventions from suggestions in a text book to tools to help your child live the fullest life possible within his abilities.

Margaret Barrett is a former Special Education teacher from the United Kingdom who has also studied developmental education here in the United States. She has worked with children with intellectual and physical disabilities of varying degrees of severity, and has additional understanding of the effects of Traumatic Brain Injury. Margaret consults with families about developmental delays, environmental enrichment, and sensory motor integration programs through her UK based consulting business, Developmental Interventions. She also travels to Japan twice a year to create home based programs for families of disabled children.

At 108 pages, You and Your Disabled Child is not overly long yet it is a comprehensive introduction to key Early Intervention concepts for any diagnosis. Like similar books, You and Your Disabled Child is written for parents who know early on that Developmental Delays are in their child’s future. One of the things that makes this book unique is Margaret’s experience working with infants and children who have suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury. Much of her support and advice is based on her understanding of the emotional struggles involved in caring for a disabled child while trying to parent with that child's social and emotional development in mind.

As “A Practical Guide for Parents”, the book includes tips on positioning and developmental care. But there are several recurrent themes throughout the book that makes it an essential resource for parents above and beyond the practical advice. Margaret repeatedly emphasizes key points that are a part of parenting any child, disabled or not:

• Always remember that a child a child. Just because your child cannot show what he understands it does not mean that he does not understand.
• Nothing is more important than how you see your child as a person.
• Focus on your child's abilities without comparing your child to others.
• Meet your child where he is at, not where you want him to be.
• There's more to life than goals and exercises – help create the social, sensory and emotional experiences your child cannot seek out naturally.
• Have the same expectations for behavior as you would for any of your children.
• Put behaviors in context of developmental age, not chronological age.
• The ultimate goal is as much independence as possible. Don’t assume that an individual who is not capable of 100% independence is not capable of any.
• Recognize your own need for emotional support.

Don’t take the tips included in You and Your Disabled Child for granted. As a Registered Nurse who has worked in both hospitals and homecare settings, I can tell you that hospital based nurses and therapists are not always aware of how different the hospital (acute care) setting is from the home. Discharge and Aftercare instructions are starting points. Unless your hospital nurse or therapist has additional home care experience, their advice has limits.

Margaret Barrett works with children and families in their homes. She knows what resources families commonly have at home and in their community. She's helped families overcome the obstacles commonly faced when raising a disabled child. She also understands the emotional aspects of parenting a disabled child. She shares this knowledge well in her book.

I did find myself wishing for illustrations to support the positioning techniques Margaret describes in Chapter 3, Encouraging Physical Development. They are described well, but I still worried that some readers might not be able to mentally picture what Margaret is suggesting. When asked, Margaret told me that future editions of "You and Your Disabled Child" might contain illustrations. She also reassured me that readers are welcome to ask her questions through the book’s Facebook wall. It's always nice to have direct access to the author!

"You and Your Disabled Child: A Practical Guide for Parents" has limited distributorship in the United States. Margaret recommends purchasing directly through Woodfield Publishing Limited, the book's publisher in the U.K. You can also submit the book's information to your community library, children's hospital family resource library, or support group and ask them to consider purchasing the book for their lending collection. If you are a member of downloadable eBook and audio book programs like R.E.A.D.S. and Bookshare you can suggest that they add the book to their library.

One lucky able2able reader will win a copy of You and Your Disabled Child! It's hard to give an ARV for the US and Canada, but the UK price is £14.95.

Mandatory first entry: Publicly follow able2able... Your Special Needs Resource Directory then leave a comment below telling me why you want to win this book!

The mandatory first entry must be completed before you can complete any of the following additional entries! You can choose to do one or all of these additional entries in any order. There are a total of 12 possible entries.

For 1 additional entry:

• Follow You and Your Disabled Child on Facebook
• Follow able2able on Twitter.
  
• Like able2able Community Nashville on Facebook and say hi!
  
• Like able2able on Facebook and post a shout out comment on the wall.
  Current Facebook Fans may post an entry.
• Enter another able2able giveaway, then come back a leave a comment here telling me what giveaway you entered.
  

For an additional 2 entries (post a comment for each entry):

• Post a link to this giveaway on your Facebook status.
  
• Tweet the link to this giveaway.

For an additional 4 entries (post a comment for each entry):
Blog about this giveaway! Your blog post must include links to this giveaway and mention able2able and You and Your Disabled Child. Include a link to your blog post in your comments.

It is very important that you post a comment for each entry. Why? Because a random number generator will be used to select the winner. Each comment will be numbered by Blogger, and I will use those numbers for the drawing. So if you combine entries into one post all your entries will not be counted. There will be no do-overs!

I will verify that the winning entry has met the requirements above, so if your comment for a FB status update is the winning comment then I might ask to see that link, etc. If I cannot verify your entry, then all your entries will be removed from the list and the drawing will be repeated.

This giveaway ends at 11:59 pm (CT) on Thursday, May 12th.

The winner's name will be posted on able2able and I will also contact you. The lucky winner will have 72 hours to reply.

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I was given a copy of this book for review. The author or publisher did not edit or influence this review.