Disability Resources
“We are a single flock under the care of a single shepherd. There can be no separate Church for persons with disabilities.” National Directory for Catechesis p. 206, n.49 (cf. Welcome and Justice for Persons with Disabilities no.1)
The Office of Catechesis offers a resource lending library for priests, DRE’s, catechists, teachers and parents on various disability topics to guide the parish community to include members with disabilities in both the Fort Wayne and South Bend offices. Resources can be checked out for three weeks as long as one copy of a title remains on the shelf as a resource.
In Fort Wayne, please contact Janice Martin at (260) 399-1411 or by email at jmartin@fw.diocesefwsb.org. In South Bend, please contact Meggan Young at (574) 259-9994 or by email at myoung@fw.diocesefwsb.org
Religious Education
The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Program to Improve Catholic Religious Education for Children and Adults with Intellectual Disabilities developed by the Diocese of Pittsburgh, Department for Persons with Disabilities is funded by a grant from the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation.
This comprehensive curriculum is designed to help priests, parents, DREs and catechists to bring the teachings of the faith to special needs children and adults by recognizing that they have a need and a right to know and embrace their Catholic faith. This program has lesson plans that parallel the same concepts that children learn in a religious education program. This program is written so that it can be used in a parish setting, within the family or in an institution or group home.
This resource is available in English and Spanish.
ADD/ADHD
The ADD & ADHD Answer Book
by Susan Ashley, PhD
Written in a Question and Answer format, this book offers practical answers to questions that parents of children with ADD or ADHD have. Includes checklists and questionnaires to help parents receive the most out of doctor appointments and evaluations.
ADHD: A Complete and Authoritative Guide
by Michael I. Reiff, MD, FAAP, Editor-in-Chief with Sherill Tippins
This book is a must-have resource for parents who want only the best advice for their children so that they can make the best decisions regarding their mentaanl health care. Answers questions most often asked by parents, the American Academy of Pediatrics makes this book an authoritative guide for parents.
Problem Solver Guide for Students with ADHD
by Harvey C. Parker, Ph.D.
This book is a quick reference for parents and teachers who are looking for insights into how to reach and guide children with ADD, with or without hyperactivity.
Teaching Young Children with ADHD
by Richard A. Lougy, Silvia L. DeRuvo and David Rosenthal, M.D.
This book provides general educators with an understanding of ADHD that includes clarifying inclusive classroom strategies to work with children with attention disorders.
The ADHD Handbook for Schools:
Effective Strategies for Identifying and Teaching Students with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
by Harvey C. Parker, Ph.D.
This book offers everything at your fingertips that a teacher or parent would want to know to be able to help a child with ADHD. Offers guidance so that parents, teachers, and health care professionals can work together with the child so that the child does not miss out on the learning experience.
ADHD in the young child: A Guide for Parents and Teachers of Young Children with ADHD
by Cathy Reimers, Ph.D. and Bruce A. Brunger
This book is unique in the sense that it allows parents and teachers to be able to gain practical solutions to the common problems that arise when having a child with ADHD. The appendix at the back of the book offers reproducible black line masters to use with the child in a variety of situations.
The ADHD Workbook for Parents: A Guide for Patents of Children Ages 2-12 with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
by Harvey C. Parker, Ph.D.
Parents are offered this book as a guide to help them to understand the at home struggles that they may face when raising a child with ADHD, while also being their child’s advocate for medical treatments and at school.
Teenagers with ADD and ADHD: A Guide for Parents and Professionals
by Chris A. Zeigler Dendy, M.S.
The teenage years are tough on any child, but the teenager with ADD or ADHD can face additional stress. This book offers parents a resource to understand their child’s diagnosis to the treatment options that will be discussed as well as many other areas to help their child get through the difficult teen years while living with ADD or ADHD.
How to Reach and Teach Children with ADD/ADHD:
Practical Techniques, Strategies, and Interventions
by Sandra F. RiefThis book is a resource for parents and teachers who are in daily contact with a child who has been given a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD. Parents and teachers will find practical strategies and suggestions to improve behavior, social performance and academic performance in children with ADD/ADHD.
The ADHD Book of Lists:
A Practical Guide for Helping Children and Teens with Attention Deficit Disorders
by Sandra F. Rief
This book is filled with supports, interventions and strategies to guide children and teens with ADD/ADHD. Reproducible checklists, calendars, forms, etc. add to this guide as a way to help children and teens learn how to focus on their day and deadlines.
Anxiety
Helping Your Anxious Child: A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents
by Ronald M. Rapee, Ph.D., Susan H. Spence, Ph.D., Vanessa Cobham, Ph.D., and Ann Wignall, M. Psych.
This book offers practical ways and advice in which to help your anxious child. Along the way, parents will learn how to teach their anxious child how to cope with anxiety and the fears that are all too real to them.
Asperger Syndrome
Asperger Syndrome & Your Child: Unlocking Your Child’s Potential
by Michael D. Powers, Psy.D., with Janet Poland
This book offers comprehensive answers to the most common questions parents have about Asperger Syndrome while offering the voices of real children who give light on living with their own condition.
Autism
1001 Great Ideas for Teaching and Raising Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
by Ellen Notbohm and Veronica Zysk
This book is like holding a toolkit packed with solutions that have worked with thousands of children living within the Autism Spectrum for communication, social issues, sensory issues, behavioral issues and self-care issues.
Ten Things Every Child With Autism Wishes You Knew
by Ellen Notbohm
This book offers insights for everyone who is not autistic or who does not have an autistic child and defines the Top Ten characteristics of the hearts and minds of children with Autism.
Autism and Your Church:
Nurturing the Spiritual Growth of People with Autism Spectrum Disorders
by Barbara J. Newman
This book gives practical insight for ways to welcome and include parishioners with ASD into the full life of the parish. Also includes action plans and reproducible resources.
Bipolar Disorder
New Hope for Children and Teens with Bipolar Disorder
by Boris Birmaher, M.D.
This book offers the latest information on not only the causes of bipolar disorder but ways in which parents and caregivers can help children and teens live their lives to the fullest while overcoming obstacles.
Depression
Helping Your Depressed Child: A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents
by Martha Underwood Barnard, Ph.D.
This book offers practical ways and advice in which to help your depressed child. Along the way, parents will learn the various ways in which to understand your child’s depression and to seek the treatment that can help. The author helps parents to see that it is the family who will be most able to help their depressed child.
Down Syndrome
Fine Motor Skills for Children with Down Syndrome:
A Guide for Parents and Professionals
by Maryanne Bruni, BScOT (Reg)
This resource offers parents and professionals an overview of fine motor development: stability, bilateral coordination, sensation, and dexterity. This resource also explains how the characteristics of Down Syndrome can affect fine motor skills. Included are dozens of activities to be done at home or at school to help kids learns skills such as: cutting with scissors, grasping a pencil, printing, eating, dressing, and grooming. In this expanded edition of the text, new material includes: a chapter on sensory process in children with Down Syndrome, tips to determine when a child is ready for preprinting and printing activities, strategies for encouraging self-help skills for independent living, expanded suggestions for useful toys, activities, equipment, Grandma & Grandpa Lists, expanded information on computer use, and much more!
Gross Motor Skills in Children with Down Syndrome:
A Guide for Parents and Professionals
by Patricia A. Winders, P.T.This resource offers parents and professionals essential information about gross motor development, including the impact of temperaments and the effect of physical and medical conditions in children with Down syndrome. Included are over 100 activities that encourage gross motor activities to be used with infants and children through age six, photos accompany the text. The gross motor skills covered are: head control, rolling, sitting, crawling, standing, walking, using inclines, kicking a ball, using stairs, running, jumping, and riding a tricycle. A list of milestones are included for tracking a child’s progress in such a way that parents and professionals can use it as a resource to choose appropriate activities.
Classroom Language Skills for Children with Down Syndrome:
A Guide for Parents and Teachers
by Libby Kumin, Ph.D., CCC-SPL
A resource for parents and teachers of children in kindergarten through middle school in inclusive classrooms, Dr. Kumin explains how communication problems for children with Down Syndrome can affect a child in school. This book provides specific strategies for adapting the language demands of schoolwork: from written assignments, tests, and spoken instructions to how to improve communication during daily school-related routines and social situations. This resource also covers augmentative communication methods for children who use little or no speech and methods for helping enhance communication skills between children with Down Syndrome and their peers. The appendix offers samples of reproducible worksheets, checklists, graphic organizers, visual prompts, and an IEP planner to help make the resources easy to get started and use.
Teaching Reading to Children with Down Syndrome:
A Guide for Parents and Teachers
by Patricia Logan OelweinThis book offers an approach that helps guide parents and teachers in teaching their children with Down Syndrome to read . The lessons in this book are both functional and imaginative. Parents and teachers will be encouraged to tailor the process to meet the individual needs of each child. The appendix offers pictures, flashcards, games, charts, and word lists that are reproducible to use as worksheets in the learning process.
Teaching Math to People with Down Syndrome and Other Hands-On Learners:
Book 1 Basic Survival Skills
by DeAnna Horstmeier, Ph.D.This book applies practical strategies while focusing on basic, introductory math skills. Parents and teachers are given a wide range of math topics that include: recognizing and writing numbers, counting, addition and subtraction (from single digits to multiple digits), how to use a calculator, understanding place values, recognizing money (coins and bills), rounding up, time, and a whole lot more to allow children and adults with Down Syndrome or other learning delays be as independent as possible with daily living skills. The appendix offers reproducible worksheets to use in the learning process.
We’ll Paint the Octopus Red
by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen, Illustrated by Pam DeVito
Emma is awoken one morning with the news that she had a new baby brother named Isaac. When she first finds out that she was getting a new brother or sister, she isn’t very happy about that fact. Through a talk with her dad, she learns all the things that she and Isaac will be able to do together. The next morning, Emma’s dad wakes her up and says there’s something that he has to tell her about her new baby brother — he has Down Syndrome.
Emma learns that even though Isaac won’t be able to do things as quickly as she had hoped, Isaac will still be able to do all the things she planned to do with him. This is a reassuring story for both parents and young children and what Down Syndrome means for their relationship with their child or sibling.
My Friend Isabelle
by Eliza Woloson, Illustrated
by Bryan GoughYoung Charlie has a friend named Isabelle. They both like to play in the park, they like to draw, dance, read and play and when their feelings get hurt they both cry. Charlie doesn’t care that his friend Isabelle is different from him. Isabelle has Down Syndrome and Charlie doesn’t. A great resource for introducing and encouraging young children to talk about differences in people. Also comes with a teacher’s guide for classroom activities that foster acceptance of differences.
Obsesive Compulsive Disorder
Talking Back to OCD
by John S. March, MD with Christine M. Benton
This book offers children and youth a way in which they can begin working toward a life that is not controlled by their obsessive-compulsive disorder. This book also offers parents ways in which to be supportive without getting in the way of their child working towards a life not controlled by OCD.
Sensory Integration Disorder
The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder
by Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A.
This book offers insights into a common, but frequently misdiagnosed, problem in which the central nervous system misinterprets messages sent from the senses. This will guide parents, educators and caregivers with the information that they may need to help the child in their care.
Raising a Sensory Smart Child
by Lindsey Biel, M.A., OTR/L and Nancy Peske
Parents will value the insights in this book that remind them that the child with Sensory Integration Disorder does not experience the world as others do. Parents will be taught how to observe their child while analyzing the child’s behavior through suggestions, resources and checklists.
The Everything Parent’s Guide to Sensory Integration Disorder
by Terri Mauro
Broken down into a one-stop guide for parents, this book offers the resources in an easy to read and understandable manner to help guide their child to become happy, heathly and confident adults.
The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun
by Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A.
This book gives 100 plus ideas for playful activities which are designed especially for children with Sensory Integration Disorder. Each playful activity will help to develop a the child’s body and brain.
Sign Language
Signing: How to Speak with Your Hands
by Elaine Costello
For anyone who desires to learn American Sign Language this book gives guidance to 1,200 signs and their descriptions organized into 13 chapters.
Disabilities Resources
Helping Kids Include Kids with Disabilities
by Barbara J. Newman
This book offers ways in which those involved in ministry and teaching can help kids receive information that they need to be able to reach out to their peers with disabilities. Teachers will also gain insight into what they can do to help welcome the child with disabilities into their classroom.
Complete Learning Disabilities Handbook
by Joan M. Harwell
This book is a resource for anyone involved in special education or who teaches a student with a learning disability.
Life Skills Activities for Secondary Students with Special Needs
by Darlene Mannix
This book is a resource for anyone who is involved with a special needs child. Practical lessons with reproducible worksheets to help guide the child to into the context of real-life situations.
Social Skills Activities for Secondary Students with Special Needs
by Darlene Mannix
This book allows those who work with special needs students in Grades 6-12 to build the social skills that they will need in various real-life situations.
It’s So Much Work to Be Your Friend:
Helping the Child with learning Disabilities Find Social Success
by Richard LavoieA book to help caregivers of children ages six to 17 guide them through almost any social situation from home to school and beyond.
You will Dream New Dreams:
Inspiring Personal Stories by Parents of Children with Disabilities
by Stanley D. Klein, Ph.D. and Kim SchiveIn this collection of writings from real-life fathers and mothers of children with disabilities, parents will be able to realize that while having a child with a disability may not be exactly the child they dreamed of, they will learn to dream now undiscovered dreams with their child.
Treating Youth with DSM-IV Disorders:
The Role of Social Skill Instruction
by Michael Sterna, M.H.D. and Tom Dowd, M.A.More of an evaluation tool to help caregivers, doctors and teachers understand the various disorders commonly diagnosed in youth. It is by no means a self-evaluation tool as proper diagnosis should be made by a doctor or mental health professional.