Parenting a Child with Sensory Processing Disorder: A Family Guide to Understanding and Supporting Your Sensory-Sensitive Child

The author, a professional working with children with special needs and father of a child with sensory processing disorder, offers the first book to help parents integrate care for a child with sensory processing disorder with the needs of the family as a whole.

About the Author :
Christopher R. Auer, MA, is employed in the Mayor's Office for Education and Children as the disabilities and mental health administrator for Denver's Great Kids Head Start. He holds licensure as a director of special education and is the parent of three children, one of whom is diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, mood disorder and sensory processing disorder. Susan L. Blumberg, Ph.D., is co-author of six books, including Fighting for Your Marriage and Twelve Hours to a Great Marriage. She has more than twenty years' experience as a family advocate for families with children with special needs, helping families navigate through the system to obtain services and supports. She is also the parent of two children, one of whom is diagnosed with non-verbal learning disability and sensory processing disorder.

Review :
Auer and Blumberg have lent their insight, passion, and compassion to this workbook. In so doing they have also provided a guidebook-and a preamble of advocacy for children and their families. --Morton Ann Gernsbacher, Ph.D., Vilas Research Professor and Sir Frederic C. Bartlett Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison It has been said that a family of five is akin to five people lying side-by-side on a waterbed: whenever one person moves, everyone feels the ripple. A child with sensory processing disorder can have a devastating impact upon the day-to-day functioning of a family. There are several books available that provide data and information on the nature of this puzzling disorder, but Auer and Blumberg have written a valuable book that finally provides parents with specific strategies and practical solutions to the daily challenges faced by these special children and their families. While other books define the problem, Auer and Blumberg offer techniques to minimize the effect of the disorder on the child's daily life. I strongly recommend this book to any adult who is parenting a child with a sensory processing problem-and to the professionals who are assisting moms and dads on this challenging journey. ---Richard D. Lavoie, M.A., M.Ed., author of It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend and executive producer of How Difficult Can This Be? The F.A.T. City Workshop Finally a book that treats SPD in the full context that it deserves: not as a co-condition or as another obstacle but as a full fledged challenge to the complete inclusion of individuals with unique learning styles. The collaborative integration of the senses accounts for your picking up this book, examining it and deciding on whether to make it part of your library. Auer and Bloomberg walk you through how that process is both derailed and rekindled. --Rick Rader, MD, editor-in-chief of Exceptional Parent magazine and director of the Morton J. Kent Habilitation Center Read this with a highlighter in hand, because you will want to refer many times to the wise and wonderful ideas in this splendid how-to book. The authors are not only sensitive and resourceful parents of kids with SPD, but also articulate, honest, and sensible writers. --Carol S. Kranowitz, MA, author of The Out-of-Sync Child In raising children with or without special needs, nothing is more important than the family unit. This book will enable you to enhance your child's sensory development. Additionally, it will help you ensure that your child and all family members not only survive, but, indeed, thrive! When your whole family thrives, you can best ensure your child's optimum development over the short and long range of life. --Ann Turnbull, Ed.D., cofounder and codirector of the Beach Center on Disability at the University of Kansas