Every child should have access to an education that works. The Quest for a Meaningful Special Education follows the educational journeys of nine students with a language-based learning disability (LBLD) who, through a combination of parental advocacy and luck, were removed from a debilitating learning situation and enrolled in a school designed to address their particular learning needs. In the process of following their journeys, the book explores the role of cultures within and outside the school and examines some of the ways that the construction of special education has affected student learning. In the context of the ongoing national conversation about student academic success, high school dropout rates, the disproportionate number of prison inmates with learning disabilities, the costs of educating students, and the controversy over the placement of minorities in special education, The Quest For a Meaningful Special Education is a timely book that will add a new perspective to current debates

This volume will address the most current perspectives and issues related to general and special education inclusion and will be written by leaders in the field with particular expertise in this area. This volume will be an excellent resource for special educators, administrators, mental health clinicians, school counsellors, and psychologists.

This book collects multiple disciplinary voices which explore current research and perspectives to discuss how spirituality is understood, interpreted and applied in a range of contexts. It addresses spirituality in combination with such topics as Christian mysticism, childhood and adolescent education, midwifery, and sustainability. It links spirituality to a variety of disciplines, including cognitive neuroscience, sociology, and psychology. Finally, it discusses the application of spirituality within the context of social work, teaching, health care, and occupational therapy. A final chapter provides an analytical discussion of the different voices that appear in the book and offers a holistic description of spirituality which has the potential to bring some unity to the meaning, expression and practice of spirituality across a variety of disciplines as well as across cultural, religious and secular worldviews. "A strength of the book is that each chapter is characterized by a fearless confronting of oppositional perspectives and use of the latest research in addressing them. The book takes the difficult topic of spirituality into almost every nook and cranny of personal and professional life. There is a persistent grasping of the contentiousness of the topic, together with addressing counter positions and utilizing updated research across a range of fields in doing this. The opening and closing chapters serve as book ends that keep the whole volume together."Terence Lovat, The University of Newcastle, Australia "The interdisciplinary nature of the work is by far the strongest aspect of this volume. It has the potential to contribute to a dialogue between different professions and disciplines. This prospective publication promises to promote a more holistic approach to the study of spirituality. This volume takes into consideration a wide variety of issues. The way the editors have structured the sequence of chapters contributes to facilitate any possible dialogue between the different areas."Adrian-Mario Gellel, University of Malta, Malta

Family engagement varies in education literature and often includes collaboration, involvement, and partnership. The term “family in schools” has changed to include extended family members such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, and others who interact with the child, such as step-parents, caregivers, and neighbors. Family engagement is a practice, an interactive process, and a goal-oriented relationship involving professionals and families, allowing families to share their perspectives about their children, their learning, and their customs to improve their children's education. Advocating and Empowering Diverse Families of Students With Disabilities Through Meaningful Engagement provides the knowledge, skills, and dispositions for effective engagements of all families with children in special education. With recent changes in student population diversity among those enrolling in special education, the diversity of family compositions in the school system is also evolving. Covering topics such as laws and legal infrastructure, special education, and family engagement, this book is ideal for classroom teachers, administrators, researchers, and students in education programs.

The Concise Encyclopedia of Special Education, Second Edition is a comprehensive resource for those working in the fields of special education research and practice. Featuring reviews of assessment instruments and teaching approaches, legal issues, overviews of specific learning disabilities, dozens of biographies, and more, this complete desk reference is an indispensable guide for professionals, academics, and students alike. Named an American Library Association Top 25 Reference of the Year in its First Edition, The Concise Encyclopedia serves as an important reference for the education of handicapped and other exceptional children. Written and edited by highly regarded and respected experts in the fields of special education and psychology, this authoritative resource guide provides a reference base for educators as well as professionals in the areas of psychology, neuropsychology, medicine, health care, social work and law. Additionally, this acclaimed reference work is essential for administrators, psychologists, diagnosticians, and school counselors, as well as parents of the handicapped themselves. What's new in this edition Comprehensive coverage of new legislation such as Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act Cultural competence in Special Education, including new material on culturally/linguistically diverse students Many new entries including notable biographies, new service delivery systems, special education laws, new assessment instruments, cross-cultural issues, neuropsychology, and use of the Internet in research and service delivery. Some of the topics covered Academic assessment Achievement tests Addictions Bilingual education Child and adolescent behavior management Counseling with individuals and families with disabilities Early childhood education Gifted education Intelligence tests Mathematics disabilities Psychoeducational methods Rehabilitation Socioeconomic status Special education parent and student rights Traumatic brain injury

'[T]his book provides an excellent overview of special education, which will be a valuable resource for teachers, school managers and administrators, parents and indeed anyone with an interest in the development of provision for pupils with special educational needs. It is also likely to be an invaluable source book for researchers and postgraduate students alike' - REACH 'The Handbook offers a range of views on how to empower all learners to transcend their current performance and go "beyond the limits"' - Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology `This text makes an important contribution to special education. Perhaps, more significantly, it makes an important contribution to inclusive education, and possibly, even more widely, to education in general...it is a book that has significance for all of us who wish to move education towards a more equitable, democratic, humane, and dignified system for our young people' - Education in the North In recent years there has been increasingly vigorous debate about the nature and purpose of special education, and what might be considered the appropriate responses to pupils who experience difficulties in learning. This Handbook brings together the most up to date knowledge of this area and will serve as the major source book of authoritative information and ideas about current and future directions for special education. It examines the intricate relation between theory, research and practice, and places a particular emphasis on what has been learned about providing for students who experience difficulties in learning, how these understandings can contribute to new conceptualisations of special education and the development of more inclusive schools. This comprehensive, research-based work, brings together scholarship on an international level, and covers topics that transcend national boundaries. It will become essential reading for all professionals and academics with any interest in this important and dynamic field.

This highly practical book helps K–8 teachers implement effective reading interventions that support meaningful comprehension and engage students with interesting, age-appropriate texts. Andrew P. Johnson presents a range of strategies for addressing difficulties in the core areas of word identification, fluency, and comprehension. Packed with illustrative figures, the book provides guidance and tools for assessing reading problems, combining and adapting interventions for particular students, planning writing activities to enhance reading, aligning efforts within a response-to-intervention framework, and designing individualized education programs. Informed by current research, Johnson candidly targets "educational malpractice” and helps readers puzzle through the controversies surrounding dyslexia diagnoses and special education decision making.

There is an inherent connection between the Christian faith and special education. For example, both focus on the worth of the individual. Both also focus on fairness and on caring for, or helping, the weak. Similarly, both aim to equip and support others. This book helps the readers perceive this integral relationship that exists between the Christian faith and the special education discipline. This book utilizes the chapters that stem from real life professional experiences and scholarship of the contributors to model and encourage special education practice from a Christian faith angle. It is our view that special education practiced from this faith perspective will transform what is currently accepted as best practice, into a new system of special education experience that is wholesome, biblically-based, and characteristic of Shalom as wholeness (not just peace). Shalom in this sense has strong relevance in both the Christian faith and special education. The first three chapters highlight the connection between special education and Christian theology, and draw attention to the pivotal role worldview plays in being an effective special educator. The bulk of the body of the text looks at different aspects of instructional effectiveness in special education from a Christian faith perspective.

★“[T]his is a scholarly, commendable biography and intellectual history. Lay readers will be challenged; psychologists and historians will be grateful.”—Library Journal, starred review First published in 1946, Viktor Frankl’s memoir Man’s Search for Meaning remains one of the most influential books of the last century, selling over ten million copies worldwide and having been embraced by successive generations of readers captivated by its author’s philosophical journey in the wake of the Holocaust. This long-overdue reappraisal examines Frankl’s life and intellectual evolution anew, from his early immersion in Freudian and Adlerian theory to his development of the “third Viennese school” amid the National Socialist domination of professional psychotherapy. It teases out the fascinating contradictions and ambiguities surrounding his years in Nazi Europe, including the experimental medical procedures he oversaw in occupied Austria and a stopover at the Auschwitz concentration camp far briefer than has commonly been assumed. Throughout, author Timothy Pytell gives a penetrating but fair-minded account of a man whose paradoxical embodiment of asceticism, celebrity, tradition, and self-reinvention drew together the complex strands of twentieth-century intellectual life. From the introduction: At the same time, Frankl’s testimony, second only to the Diary of Anne Frankin popularity, has raised the ire of experts on the Holocaust. For example, in the 1990s the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington purportedly refused to sell Man’s Search for Meaningin the gift shop.... During the late 1960s and early 1970s Frankl became very popular in America. Frankl’s survival of the Holocaust, his reassurance that life is meaningful, and his personal conviction that God exists served to make him a forerunner of the self-help genre.

"What tools are in the toolkit of an excellent special educator, and how can teacher preparation programs provide these tools in the most efficient, effective way possible? This practical, clearly written book is grounded in current research and policy as well as the author's extensive experience as a teacher educator. It identifies what special education teachers need to know to work competently with students with a wide variety of learning challenges and disabilities. Chapters present specific guidelines for helping teacher candidates build critical skills for instruction and assessment, get the most out of field placements, and collaborate successfully with other school personnel and with parents. Subject Areas/Keywords: assessments, curriculum, disabilities, exceptional children, field work, IEPs, inclusion, instruction, learning, lessons, professional development, special education, special needs, standards, students, teacher preparation programs, teacher training, teachers, teaching Audience: Teacher educators in special education, graduate students preparing to be teacher educators, and school district personnel who provide staff development for special education teachers"--