Developing Differently: A Guide for Parents of Young Children with Global Developmental Delay, Intellectual Disability, or Autism

Parenting isn't easy, and parenting a child with a Global Developmental Delay, Intellectual Disability, or Autism can be challenging. However, a lot of parenting strategies are straightforward once you get your head around them. With the right knowledge, environment, interactions, responses and understanding, you can help reduce your child's anxiety, build their confidence, and help them develop learning and communication skills. Based on his work as a Clinical Psychologist working with children developing differently, Dr Joshua Muggleton provides a comprehensive, step-by-step parenting plan that will support you to embed good practice at home from day one. The book outlines how to provide the right environment for your child to learn and grow, how to model and encourage new skills, how to organise routines, and how to make these strategies work in family life. By getting things right for your child early on, you can help prevent emotional and behavioural challenges before they arise, and will be better able to understand and support your child when they do. These strategies are designed to work across all neurodevelopmental conditions, and take into account co-occurring conditions such as ADHD, meaning none of the advice in the book requires your child to have a specific diagnosis. It also includes downloadable examples of charts, how-to guides for creating visual resources tailored to your child's individual needs, and downloadable chapters on sleep and siblings.

About the Author :
Dr Joshua Muggleton is a Clinical Psychologist. He is also autistic, and from a neurodiverse family. From an early age he was interested in how and why he and other young people saw the world differently. Combining this personal interest with academia, he gained undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Psychology, including a doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Edinburgh. Since qualifying, Josh has been working exclusively with children and young people developing differently, many of whom have developmental delays, physical health issues, or neurodevelopmental conditions such as Intellectual Disability, Autism, or ADHD.

Review :
Engagingly written, full of wisdom and warmth, this book expertly sets out our understanding of what enabling a child labelled 'different not less' looks like. Drawn from the experiences of children, families and professionals, as well as research, it is authentic and encouraging. A wonderful read that feels like having a knowing friend by your side reminding you what you're doing right, rather than someone at your shoulder telling you what you're doing wrong. A gentle and encouraging guide for parents, Developing Differently does a brilliant job of laying out in plain language all of the complexity and nuance of years of knowledge and experience from research and clinical practice. Dr Muggleton's sincere empathy and insight into the experiences of the families he is writing for is clear on every page. This feels like a book that parents will return to again and again. As a parent, I often struggle to find the time or energy to read. Developing Differently, however, was engaging from the outset and it was easy to navigate to specific sections relevant to my family's needs for information and advice. Muggleton's writing is relaxed, respectful, and relatable, with some humour thrown in for good measure when appropriate. I believe it will bring comfort and support to many who, like me, are navigating the journey of parenting a child or children with additional support needs. A book for parents that places the human beings at the centre of the thinking, explains strategies and talks about what really happens. I thoroughly recommend this book it makes good advice practical and doable. This is the book that I've always wished the families I work with could access. Friendly, accessible and comprehensive. I commend it to any family with a neurodivergent child. This is the ideal book for the parent of a child developing differently, I wish it had been available when my son was diagnosed. A wealth of practical advice is delivered in a very parent-friendly way with gentle humour which makes it very easy to read.