Bernice Wong's Learning about Learning Disabilities was the first text to give equal attention to the intellectual, conceptual, and practical aspects of learning disabilities. The Third Edition of this popular title presents 80% new material, keeping the chapters up to date in this fast-moving field. With new contributors, and seven new chapters, coverage is both comprehensive and thorough, with three sections encompassing the research aspects of learning disabilities, the instructional aspects of learning disabilities, and the issues germane to different age ranges of the learning disabled: children, adolescents, and adults.Chapters summarizing research on learning disabilities include coverage of ADHD, memory, language processing, social competence, self-regulation, and brain structures as they apply to learning disabilities. Chapters focusing on instructional aspects of learning disabilities include coverage of teaching literacy, reading comprehension, writing, and mathematics.Readers will find Learning About Learning Disabilities, Third edition suitable for use as a reference source for researchers or a graduate level text.Reviews from previous editions:"An undergraduate text that strikes a careful balance between the intellectual (psychological) and practical aspects of learning disabilities."—BOOK NEWS, INC."This text provides a balanced focus on both the conceptual and practical aspects of learning disabilities. Its research coverage is more comprehensive and of greater depth than any other LD textbook, and it is distinctive in its treatment of such important areas as consultation skills and service delivery."—CHILD ASSESSMENT NEWS"Learning About Learning Disabilities provides a broad overview of some important issues in relation to the education and development of pupils with learning disabilities... Wong has succeeded in providing detailed descriptions and comments within a book which covers a broad range of topics. Without exception the chapters are clearly written and accessible, and many provide the reader with challenging ideas and practical suggestions."—BRITISH JOURNAL OF SPECIAL EDUCATION * Provides a balanced focus on both the conceptual and the practical aspects of learning disabilities. * Research coverage more comprehensive and of greater depth than any other textbook about learning disabilities * The work is distinctive in its treatment of such important areas as consultation skills and service delivery

This book is the result of the first two-year work of Working Group 1 of the network “LUDI – Play for children with disabilities”. LUDI is an Action (2014-2018) financed by COST; it is a multidisciplinary network of more than 30 countries and almost 100 researchers and practitioners belonging to the humanistic and technological fields to study the topic of play for children with disabilities within the framework of the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health (WHO, 2001).The principal objective of this book is to bring the LUDI contribution to the important topic of play in children with disabilities, because today an international consensus on the definition of play and disabilities is still lacking. The process of ensuring equity in the exercise of the right to play for children with disabilites requests three actions: to approach this topic through a “common language”, at least all over Europe; to put play at the centre of the multidisciplinary research and intervention regarding the children with disabilities; to grant this topic the status of a scientific and social theme of full visibility and recognized authority. Children with disabilities face several limitations in play, due to several reasons: impairments; playgrounds, toys and other play tools that are not accessible and usable; environments and contexts that are not accessible nor inclusive; lack of educational awareness and intentionality; lack of specific psycho-pedagogical and rehabilitative competence; lack of effective intervention methodologies. Moreover, disabled children’s lives are dominated by medical and rehabilitative practices in which play is always an activity aiming to reach an objective or to provoke an improvement; play for the sake of play is considered a waste of time. The concept of play for the sake of play strongly refers to the distinction between play activities and play-like activities. Play activities are initiated and carried out by the player (alone, with peers, with adults, etc.) for the only purpose of play itself (fun and joy, interest and challenge, love of race and competition, ilinx and dizziness, etc.). They have of course consequences on growth and development, but these consequences are not intentionally pursued. Play-like activities are initiated and conducted by an adult (with one or more children), in educational, clinical, social contexts; they are playful and pleasant, but their main objective is other than play: e.g., cognitive learning, social learning, functional rehabilitation, child's observation and assessment, psychological support, psychotherapy, etc. This book, then, contributes to a clear distinction between play and play-like activities that, hopefully, will bring to new developments in play studies.

How do children play in different kinds of child care settings? How do child care environments influence their play? How do special-needs children play in integrated and in segregated child care settings? How do adults influence play in child care environments? And what are the long term effects of children's play in child care? These are among the questions addressed by the psychologists and educators who have contributed to this book. Researchers will find Children's Play in Child Care Settings to be a valuable review of current theory and research in this area. Practitioners will better understand the ways in which early childhood environments and early childhood educators can facilitate the play of young children in child care settings. And administrators will be able to draw upon the book in designing and implementing early childhood programs for special needs and non-special needs children.

John and Elizabeth Newson were well known for their studies of child rearing, which have combined a rigorous research methodology with sympathetic insights into family life and a lively approach to scientific reporting. ‘Path-breaking’, ‘brilliant’, ‘seminal’, ‘outstanding’, ‘fascinating’, ‘enthralling’ and ‘enchanting’ are some of the adjectives used by critics to describe their previous books. They now turn their attention to toys, the ‘pegs on which children hang their play’, a study for which they are uniquely qualified. Not only had they long experience in normal child development: they had been actively involved for many years in research and training in remedial play for disabled children, their research unit was a major influence in the phenomenal development of the toy libraries self-help movement, they designed for and advised the toy industry, and they had their own family-run specialist toyshop. With this background, it is not surprising that their book on toys and playthings is both informative and entertaining on many different fronts. Richly observant, it follows the child’s development in play from using the mother or father as the ‘first and best toy’, through the exploratory and manipulative sequences, to the use of toys in ritual, symbolic or contemplative ways. Against this detailed understanding of ‘ordinary’ children’s growth points in play, the Newsons and their collaborators examine the special needs of disabled children, with a firm emphasis on how parents can help. What is more, in providing an intensely practical guide for the parents and teachers of the disabled child, they draw out comparative insights which are enlightening and absorbing for those whose children do not have such urgent problems. Once again the Newsons share with the reader the viewpoints and preoccupations of research workers in the field. There is indeed a continual sense of ‘work in progress’, and nowhere more than in the chapter on using toys for developmental assessment, where the reader is given a hot line to a laboratory (i.e. playroom) notes used in their own research unit at the time in a welcome move away from the rigid test-bound assessment of ‘special’ children. The book is enriched by the authors’ sharp awareness that the history of playthings has a far longer perspective than the history of child psychology. They are not basically interested in educational toys as such, but in all the objects, made or found, on which the child hones his skill, his reasoning powers, his imagination, his emotions or his sense of humour. Fairground baubles, joke toys and poppy-head dolls are as much a part of this book as bricks, sorting boxes and teddy bears. In the Newsons’ own words: ‘We hope that people who simply like toys as objects will find something in this book to interest them; we suspect, indeed, that liking toys will be what all readers, whatever their reason for opening the book, have in common’.