Addressing the Gaps" delves into the often-overlooked struggles of autistic children and their families in Canada, revealing how systemic inadequacies in healthcare, education, and social services lead to profound and lasting impacts. Despite a myriad of policies and programs, many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are left to navigate a fragmented system that too often falls short. This eBook uncovers the lengthy delays in diagnosis, the patchwork of services that vary drastically from one province to another, and the significant financial burdens placed on families seeking essential therapies and interventions. It highlights the inconsistencies in educational support, where inclusive education policies are poorly implemented and resources for specialized programs are scarce. Through powerful case studies and personal narratives, "Addressing the Gaps" paints a vivid picture of the daily battles faced by autistic children and their families, from social isolation and bullying to the overwhelming stress on parents and caregivers. These stories are complemented by a critical analysis of current government initiatives and the persistent gaps that need urgent attention. Yet, amidst these challenges, the book also shares inspiring success stories of advocacy, innovation, and resilience. It offers a comprehensive set of recommendations aimed at policymakers, educators, healthcare providers, and community leaders, providing a roadmap for creating a more equitable and supportive system.

This edited collection focuses on Africentric social work practice, providing invaluable assistance to undergraduate students in developing foundational skills and knowledge to further their understanding of how to initiate and maintain best practices with African Canadians. In social work education and field practice, students will benefit from the depth and breadth of this book’s discussions of social, health and educational concerns related to Black people across Canada. The book’s contributors present a broad spectrum of personal and professional experiences as African Canadian social work practitioners, students and educators. They address issues that African Canadians confront daily, which social work educators and potential practitioners need to understand to provide racially and culturally relevant services. The book presents students with an invaluable opportunity to develop their practical skills through case studies and critical thinking exercises, with recommendations for how to ethically and culturally engage in African-centred service provision.

Inclusive education is a critical issue at the forefront of educators’ minds. Transformative Inclusive Education tackles the subject by reimagining current practices in education and renovating teaching strategies. This collection demonstrates that inclusion is an educational reform movement that can only succeed if educational institutions and practitioners rethink the meaning, substance, and purpose of education and adopt the new missions, patterns of decision-making, understandings of teaching and learning, pedagogies, collaborative roles, and classroom practices that flow directly from the inclusive reform movement. Featuring contributions from a diverse array of scholars, practitioners, and people with disabilities, this text weaves together the historical, legal, theoretical, and pedagogical currents that underpin the implementation of inclusive education and speaks to current research in the field. From there, it moves forward with a practical trajectory and guide for enacting lasting, effective change in schools to create an inclusive environment for all students. The authors integrate concepts such as RTI, UDL, MTSS, and SEL, and address issues such as collaborative decision-making, positive approaches to behaviour, academic scaffolding, and inclusive technologies and teaching practices. They also look beyond schools, extending inclusive education to families and communities and integrating self-advocacy in practice. Including case studies, realistic examples, and activities for further learning and reflection, this volume is a vital resource for undergraduate and graduate students in education. FEATURES - Provides a framework to redesign teaching practice and enact positive, lasting change for truly inclusive schools - Connects theory to larger pedagogical constructs such as experiential learning, social construction of knowledge, student engagement, and authentic learning - Contains resources for further reading and activity boxes with essential takeaways for student review

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Law and Neurodiversity offers invaluable guidance on how autism research can inform and improve juvenile justice policies in Canada and the United States. This perceptive work examines the history of institutionalization, the evolution of disability rights, and advances in juvenile justice that incorporate considerations of neurological difference into court practice. In Canada, the diversion of delinquent autistic youth away from formal processing has fostered community-based strategies for them under state authority in its place. US policies rely more heavily on formal responses, often employing detention in juvenile custody facilities. These differing approaches profoundly affect how services such as education are delivered to youth with autism. Building on a rigorous exploration of how assessment, rehabilitation, and community re-entry differ between the two countries, Law and Neurodiversity offers a much-needed comparative analysis of autism and juvenile justice policies on both sides of the forty-ninth parallel.