The Child with Special Needs: Encouraging Intellectual and Emotional Growth

This is the one book to get if you have a child with special needs. I cannot state enough how wonderful this book is in helping your child grow and develop above and beyond their current level, not just incrementally, but in leaps and bounds! I have a daughter with autism and first I tried the Behavioral books, such as "Behavioral Intervention for Young Children with Autism" along with all the other books based on the Lovaas Method and the Behavioral Model of teaching which is shaping behavior step-by-step using reinforcers (just how Pavlov got a dog to ring a bell for food or how, in my Psychology class, I got a pigeon to peck a red dot for food) I tried the Lovaas method for one year, also called ABA or Applied Behavioral Analysis, and my child did not progress in her development. She was also enrolled in an Early Start class and was getting speech therapy. Finally I bought Dr. Greenspan's book when my daughter turned 3, one year after her diagnosis. I only wish I found this book earlier! This is based on the Developmental approach to learning. It is full of hope, not false hope like dietary cures, but real hope based on real methods that are simple to learn, make a lot of sense and are based on how children actually learn. It really makes perfect sense when you read it: Play with your child, keep an interaction going, keep them actively engaged, block them from self-stimulating or hiding into their own world, keep them interacting with you. This is a lot of work, but it is natural and rewarding and you can do it yourself without training. You do not have to do this all day long. Dr. Greenspan recommends several 30-minute sessions of "Floortime" each day. Do not believe the bad reviews on this book that say something like, "If your child flaps their arms, flap with them." I kept away from this book for one year based on such reviews, but that is not how it is at all! This book is empowering and enlightening. Dr. Greenspan's entire premise is based on this: Although your child is disabled, they can learn and grow way beyond any level you could imagine for them or any teacher could vision for them, by having high expectations and not limiting them based on their label. Yes it is work, but with a little effort on your part, your child can really improve and learn self-help skills to become an independent adult. That is the goal for all children with special needs and it's not easy to get them there, but for most all children it is doable with work, time and attention and high expectations that it can and will happen! Dr. Greenspan does not throw out the Behavioral approach of Lovaas at all- he even states that for some children both approaches are necessary to learning, he has an entire chapter on this. Each child is unique and each child needs an approach tailored to what works best for that child. For my daughter, Greenspan's approach really works and after using this method for several months, she is now enrolled in an integrated Preschool with

When my wife and I first felt that our daughter had serious developmental issues, we panicked. My daughter was 3 at that time and was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified(PDD NOS). Days later a librarian helped me choose this book. I read the book, re read it many times and applied it to interact with my daughter. After nearly two years of applying the principles and techniques discussed in this book, we turned our daughter around a full 180 degrees.She is now very intentional, joyful, creative, spontaneous, logical, friendly and natural. What were some of her major issues are now her strengths. She still has a few minor issues and they are being addressed. Our main intervention has been Dr. Greenspan's Floortime model. Most of the caregivers and professionals of my daughter were educated in the Floortime principles. This book must be considered a great tool for providing intervention to special needs kids both at home and in the classroom. This intervention is very demanding of a parent's time and mind but worth every bit of it. We had a great psychologist that helped us apply the intervention. Contrary to what another reviewer said, this intervention is not easy. You need a lot of patience, determination, mental energy to understand your child and apply the intervention for her individual needs. Stanley Greenspan and Serena Weider created a masterpiece. This is a must read for anyone with a special needs child.

This hefty resource is informative, insightful and, most of all, inspirational--giving parents a way to reach children who often seem so unreachable. In addition to the very concrete instructions on how to do Floor Time, it provides a wealth of information on the emotional development and behavioral challenges of neurologically impaired children. Dr. Greenspan is well-known and well-respected in special-education circles, so if you, like me, are the kind of parent who is constantly copying passages of favorite books to give to teachers and Child Study Team members, know that the material here will get their attention. Only one quibble: How are parents with challenging children supposed to find the time to read a book as big and information-packed as this one? All the same, it's well worth the effort. Who needs sleep, anyway?

There is no book on PDD/Autism that has meant more to our daughter's life. Though Greenspan is an M.D. the writing style of this text is very readable (probably due to Wieder !) and is full of stories and examples of children who have made dramatic gains after initial developmental delays. The diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorders is still very vague and leaves parents feeling unsure of what to do next. This book allowed me to explain to our therapists what kind of interventions, and what kind of childhood, I wanted for my daughter. She is making wonderful gains and I am very thankful I found this book.

Early in the book Dr. Greenspan described 3 components typically involved in develomentally delayed children: sensory input, sensory processing, and motor planning. This was the first time I had seen in print a description of exactly what seemed to be affecting my son. We have never had a diagnosis for him so I also appreciate that the book does not get bogged down in labelling a child. The developmental path that he suggests a child must follow gave us a fairly clear "map" to follow. Excellent book.