Written by an experienced team of practitioners and scholars, this text attempts to fill the gap in texts that specifically address the needs of Learning Disabilities (LD) students in the socioemotional and mental health domains. By providing a foundational understanding of some of the salient issues facing students with learning disabilities, we hope to empower all of those who are working to ensure their success by providing the particular challenges that LD students and their families may face, and strategies and best practices for building creativity, resiliency, prosocial behavior, and positive mental health. As a practitioner and family-oriented text, this book seeks to offer a truncated review of relevant literature followed by suggestions to guide practice.

'Maximizing Mental Health Services: Evidence-Based Practices that Promote Emotional Well-Being' examines best therapeutic practices for patients, therapists, graduate professors, family members and all who struggle to find the most effective treatment modalities for those dealing with mental health challenges. Mental health issues are rising at an alarming rate, while positive therapeutic outcomes have not kept pace and remain low for many conditions, making an investigation of evidence-based treatment options critically important to the helping profession. While certain types of therapy bring success to specific clients, these modalities cannot be easily applied to all client profiles. Understanding the strengths of each modality and how to match them to the respective needs of the client will be emphasized. Furthermore, the impact of counselors’ own traits on the client-therapist relationship is an important and often overlooked topic that will be explored. Therapy practices have changed over the past decade to include non-traditional options; therefore, the authors investigate the ways in which these practices have either helped or hindered patient success. Lastly, the book offers readers information on resources for further information on the evidence-based practices presented within.

This unique book informs elementary school counselor practice in a positive way that changes the lives of students with learning disabilities by helping to engage them in their learning in an effective and concrete manner. Through a comprehensive lens, this book gives elementary school counselors the tools they need to work with students with learning disabilities in a school setting, starting with an overview of learning disabilities as they apply to the role of the elementary school counselor. The second part of the book then explores these topics in depth with a step-by-step program for creating counselor-led groups for elementary school students with learning disabilities. The 6-to-8-week plan outlines how elementary school counselors can create and implement the program in their own schools and is accompanied by worksheets and handouts to help engage students. Exceptionally beneficial for elementary school counselors and graduate students in school counseling programs, it is a guide book for counselors working with elementary school students with learning disabilities.

The Burden of Being a Boy: Bolstering Educational Achievement and Emotional Well-Being in Young Males is written for everyone who has a stake in the health and well-being of contemporary American boys and adolescents—parents, educators, counselors, educational administrators, student services personnel, higher education faculty, and students studying education and psychology. Mainly though, this is a book for those who are committed to seeing all boys grow and thrive while avoiding what has been termed as toxic male culture in this, and other, countries. While this book largely focuses on understanding the roles that schooling and upbringing play on boys’ development, it explores this complex topic with a clear belief that there are myriad factors that influence each boy’s developmental trajectory and that there are many ways to promote healthy, prosocial development among all young men.

A key concern for educators, administrators, professional support services personnel, parents and policy makers are barriers to learning, particularly student mental health. Statistics reveal that up to 20 percent of children and youth have mental health issues and up to 80 percent do not receive proper intervention. Barriers to Learning enables readers to gain valuable insight into the challenges presented in classrooms today. This book presents a unique classification and review of various mental health and learning issues. The authors link current education and child and youth mental health reforms to make the case for improving services to address barriers to learning. This book includes a unique School-based Integrated Student Support Model (SISSM), which, within the context of exceptional school leadership and instruction, provides a framework for timely and evidence-based integrated and collaborative services to reduce, manage, and prevent barriers to learning for all students.

Supporting the Emotional Well-being of Children and Young People with Learning Disabilities is an essential and practical resource for helping children with severe and complex learning difficulties, their classmates, their teachers and the schools that they attend. The highly adaptable materials, activities and ideas presented in this book will be useful both in the classroom and in staff training to promote understanding of emotional well-being and mental health of all pupils who may need support. Fox, Laverty and Chowdhury cover a range of topics that engage with the school as a whole, inclusive classrooms and the individual student. Their frameworks and practical suggestions aid teachers to support the well-being and mental health of students in a variety of ways, with material tailored for classrooms and the individual student. Supporting the Emotional Well-being of Children and Young People with Learning Disabilities is a comprehensive resource for teachers and management in special needs schools, recognising current government policies and helping teachers to understand and appropriately engage with students as individuals and as classes.

Throughout the chapters of this book, the reader will be introduced to the thirteen disability categories included in IDEA (specific learning disabilities, emotional/behavioral disorders, autism, other health impaired, intellectually disabled, multiple disabilities, speech or language impairments, traumatic brain injury, hearing impairment, deaf/blind, deafness, visual impairment, and orthopedic impairment), using the legally established definitions. Lengthy descriptions of best practices, modifications and accommodations follow, offering a complete picture of each disability and how educators and parents collaboratively can assist the struggling student. To set the stage, the book begins with chapters that discuss special education in general, response to intervention as an intermediary step in the academic continuum of support, and the individualized education plan process. Subsequent chapters examine each of the thirteen aforementioned IDEA disability categories, which have not been commonly incorporated into one comprehensive resource; however, for the sake of brevity, some disability categories have been combined when doing so did not impact practice implications. Emphasis is placed on effective classroom strategies and interventions associated with each disability category with the intent of providing practitioners and those who support them with the information and tools necessary to support students with identified educational needs. To the extent possible, the primary authors sought to ensure this resource was practical and user-friendly for educators who work directly with students with the range of recognized disabilities. This book demystifies the special education process and disability categories as well as offers educators and their families the tools to help our students, who have one or more disabilities, find life-long success. Ensuring the best for our students with disabilities requires that we first acknowledge and support the hard work and deep commitment of those professionals and parents/guardians who devote their lives to teaching, reaching, mentoring and advocating for those most vulnerable in our classrooms.