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The Misunderstood Child: Understanding and Coping with Your Child's Learning Disabilities
A completely revised edition of a best-selling guide offers parents of children with learning disabilities a thorough understanding of the problem and its related disorders, as well as treatment options and more. Original. 17,500 first printing.
416 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1984
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About the author
Larry B. Silver
16 books1 followerDr. Larry B. Silver is an author and a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical Center.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 31, 2017
Dr. Silver is a brilliant doctor, and this book has many, many useful tips for parents. I would recommend it as a reference book, or a book to be studied. That said, it's almost 400 pages, with about 10 point type.
A few things:
* This is a bit of a "kitchen sink" reference book, containing a real data dump from a psychiatrist.
* Lots and lots and lots of descriptions of ADHD medications, which I found a bit weird. So weird, in fact, that I put in some time (consumer-cynic that I am) checking to see if Dr. Silver is in the pay of Novartis. The only thing I found was a quote from him:
"They make the child 'normal.'" Larry B. Silver, "ADHD: Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder and Learning Disabilities: Booklet for the Classroom Teacher, published by Novartis (which makes Ritalin), in 1997. This is from a book called "Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs," by Melody Petersen.
The reason that I looked up the connection is this: My version of this book is from 2006, but it's an older book. Especially in more current years, we're seeing all sorts of new information about how children learn and how the brain develops that might pertain to understanding learning disabilities. And then involve physical exercises, teaching differently, and so forth.
In today's world, where 15% of American boys are told that they have ADHD, sometimes parents just want to do a little research on the alternatives.
I finally put two and two together. Dr. Silver is a professor of psychiatry. It's important to remember that psychiatrists are the doctors who are taught to identify problems, and then, in modern times, often medicate them. I came out of reading this book thinking that perhaps I should read books by teachers, or neurodevelopmental researchers (like Dr. Brock Eide), if I wanted to know more about learning disabilities.
A few things:
* This is a bit of a "kitchen sink" reference book, containing a real data dump from a psychiatrist.
* Lots and lots and lots of descriptions of ADHD medications, which I found a bit weird. So weird, in fact, that I put in some time (consumer-cynic that I am) checking to see if Dr. Silver is in the pay of Novartis. The only thing I found was a quote from him:
"They make the child 'normal.'" Larry B. Silver, "ADHD: Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder and Learning Disabilities: Booklet for the Classroom Teacher, published by Novartis (which makes Ritalin), in 1997. This is from a book called "Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs," by Melody Petersen.
The reason that I looked up the connection is this: My version of this book is from 2006, but it's an older book. Especially in more current years, we're seeing all sorts of new information about how children learn and how the brain develops that might pertain to understanding learning disabilities. And then involve physical exercises, teaching differently, and so forth.
In today's world, where 15% of American boys are told that they have ADHD, sometimes parents just want to do a little research on the alternatives.
I finally put two and two together. Dr. Silver is a professor of psychiatry. It's important to remember that psychiatrists are the doctors who are taught to identify problems, and then, in modern times, often medicate them. I came out of reading this book thinking that perhaps I should read books by teachers, or neurodevelopmental researchers (like Dr. Brock Eide), if I wanted to know more about learning disabilities.
August 27, 2022
So helpful for parents with a non-neurotypical child.
April 25, 2016
Good read if beginning down the path of learning about attention and learning issues.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews