It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend: Helping the Child with Learning Disabilities Find Social Success - Softcover

Lavoie, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743254651 ISBN 13: 9780743254656

Verlag: Atria, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

Answers the most intense need of parents, teachers, and caregivers of learning disabled children -- or anyone who knows a child who needs a friend.

ADHD • Anxiety • Nonverbal • Communication • Disorders • Visual/Spatial • Disorders • Executive Functioning Difficulties

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 and doesn't follow directions. The child with visual-spatial issues loses his belongings. The child with a nonverbal communication disorder fails to gesture when she talks. These children are socially out of step with their 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 videos and sellout lectures and workshops have made him one of the most respected experts in the field. Rick's pioneering techniques and practical strategies can help children ages six to seventeen

-Overcome shyness and low self-esteem
-Use appropriate body language to convey emotion
-Focus attention and avoid disruptive behavior
-Enjoy playdates and making friends
-Employ strategies for counteracting bullying and harassment
-Master the Hidden Curriculum and polish the apple with teachers

It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend answers the most intense need of parents, teachers, and caregivers of learning disabled children -- or anyone who knows a child who needs a friend.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

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

Rob Reiner, a two-time Emmy–winning actor for his role in the landmark television series, All in the Family, is also the acclaimed director of This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men, The American President, Ghosts of Mississippi, and The Bucket List. He recently directed the Emmy–nominated documentary Albert Brooks: Defending my Life, and the sequel to This Is Spinal Tap. As a dedicated political activist, he spearheaded a tobacco tax initiative in California to fund early childhood development and chaired the state commission to oversee its implementation. In 2008, he cofounded The American Foundation For Equal Rights, which paved the way for marriage equality nationwide. He is also the co-author of A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever, the behind-the-scenes story of the making of This Is Spinal Tap.

Mel Levine, M.D., is professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina Medical School and director of its Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning. He is the founder and cochairman of All Kinds of Minds, a nonprofit institute for the understanding of differences in learning, and the author of two previous national best-selling books, A Mind at a Time and The Myth of Laziness. He and his wife, Bambi, live on Sanctuary Farm in North Carolina.

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It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend

Helping the Child with Learning Disabilities Find Social SuccessBy Richard Lavoie

Touchstone

Copyright © 2006 Richard Lavoie
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0743254651

Introduction

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"The Other Sixteen Hours"

I have been involved in the field of learning disabilities for more than thirty years. The majority of that time was spent as a teacher and administrator at residential schools for children with learning problems. During the early years of my career, I was very involved in the admissions process at these schools and, as a result, conducted hundreds of interviews with parents whose children were struggling in school.

I recall one interview vividly. A mother from Maryland was recounting her daughter's academic history and her struggles with reading. As she spoke, she was somewhat detached and spoke in a clipped, matter-of-fact fashion. She told me that her daughter was scheduled to enter fourth grade in the fall and that her family felt that she would not be able to succeed in that placement.

I asked whether her daughter agreed that an alternative placement was appropriate. With that, the mother's facial expression softened and tears began to well up in her eyes. She told me that the idea to change schools had actually originated with her daughter. She came home from school on the last day of classes and reported that her classmates, who had ignored or rejected her all year, had waited until the teacher left the room during the end-of-year party, picked her up, and placed her in the wastebasket. Sarah, the most popular girl in the class, announced, "You're garbage...and that's where garbage belongs."

The mother had been wringing her hands and looking down while she related this story. She then looked up and our eyes met. "Just one friend, Mr. Lavoie. Just one friend. That's all I want for my daughter."

In the 1970s, those who worked with learning disabled children believed that social rejection was a cruel consequence of a child's learning disorder. Conventional wisdom held that (a) the child had academic deficiencies, therefore (b) he failed in school, (c) this failure caused great embarrassment and humiliation that lowered his self-esteem, and therefore (d) he was reluctant to "join in" with his peers and was teased because of his inability to compete academically with his classmates.

If this theory were true, it would seem logical that once the academic failure was eliminated, the child would enjoy social success. Again, the conventional wisdom held that the learning disorder caused the academic failure, and the failure caused the social isolation and rejection.

However, my experiences with these children demonstrated that this cause-and-effect theory was greatly flawed. I watched as these children entered our school's highly individualized and noncompetitive classroom environment. Lessons were tailored to meet each child's unique needs. Success was an integral part of each child's program. Specialized teaching techniques were used to ensure mastery of the target concepts. For the first time in their academic careers, these children were experiencing genuine success in the classroom. As this success expanded, it seemed logical that their social skills and status would improve. But they did not.

This demonstrated to me a direct link between learning disorders and social incompetence. I have devoted my career to highlighting that link for parents and teachers and showing them how we can help children master the abilities they need to develop effective social skills.

I have served as an administrator in residential programs for kids with learning problems for more than twenty-five years. During that time, about two dozen parents have sat across my desk and sobbed, distraught over the difficulties that their children were experiencing. Not once -- not once -- were these parents crying because their children were unable to spell, read, or do the times tables. When a parent experiences that kind of pain, it is because of the social isolation, rejection, and humiliation that the child suffers every day -- sitting alone on the school bus, hiding in the restroom during recess, eating lunch at an empty cafeteria table, waiting for the telephone to ring and the birthday invitations that never arrive.

Professionals have come to realize the critical fact that a child's social life -- often referred to as "the other sixteen hours" -- is immeasurably important to his happiness, health, and development. Most school systems now recognize that it is in the child's best interest -- and, ultimately, in the community's best interest -- to provide social skill instruction and remediation for school-age children who are not adjusting appropriately. Numerous formal studies have confirmed the wisdom of this. Children with learning disorders often have particular difficulty developing social competence. This creates a double whammy for them. They confront daily failure and frustration in both domains of school: academic and social.

The Keys to Understanding Your Child's Behavior

The social competence of children with special needs has been the subject of extensive research and study in recent years. This research indicates several truths about the link between learning disabilities and social competence that will, doubtless, mirror your own experience with children who struggle in social environments.

Children with significant learning problems

• are more likely to choose socially unacceptable behaviors in social situations

• are less able to solve social problems

• are less able to predict consequences for their social behavior

• are less able to adjust to the reactions of their listeners in discussions or conversations

• are more likely to be rejected or isolated by their peers

• are more often the object of negative and nonsupportive statements, criticisms, and warnings from teachers

• are less adaptable to new social situations

• are more likely to be judged negatively by adults after informal observation

• receive less affection from parents and siblings

• have less tolerance for frustration and failure

• use oral language that is less mature, meaningful, and concise

• have difficulty interpreting or inferring the language of others

• are far more likely to be depressed

• are more likely to be ignored by peers when initiating verbal interactions

• tend to be involved in fewer extracurricular activities and have minimal social interactions with peers outside of school

• tend to have limited, repetitive, and immature vocabulary, use shorter sentences, and be less concise

• tend to have difficulty inferring the meanings of others in conversation, taking conversational turns, and seeing others' perspective

• have difficulty understanding humor, sarcasm, and ambiguities in oral language

When these facts are considered, it is little wonder that many children with learning disorders have significant difficulty functioning successfully in social situations.

It is a widely accepted fact that the primary need of the human being is to be liked and accepted by other human beings. Therefore, if a child is behaving in a way that causes others to dislike him, can we not assume that his behaviors are beyond his control? Why would a child intentionally behave in a manner that causes others to isolate...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Atria
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0743254651
• ISBN 13: 9780743254656
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 480
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande