The Learning Tree: Overcoming Learning Disabilities from the Ground Up (A Merloyd Lawrence Book)

This is one of many books and resources I have purchased over the years as the proud mama of a beautiful little boy with significant challenges. The scope of his challenges is often difficult for me to describe briefly to others- I sometimes feel like someone trying to hold together a cracking dam with her fingertip. A dam cracking in multiple places, might I add, and there's just not enough fingertips to go around. I work with everything I have in me, and I know he's doing the best he can too, but oftentimes, I don't feel like I am enough on my own so I comb through resources (and to be honest, I pray like mad) to find any little thing that can help me improve what I do to help him thrive to the highest degree possible for him, and that is why I purchased this book a couple years back. Because the only thing greater then his challenges is the love I have for him, so it is worth my time to do that. So I am writing this from the perspective of a parent of a kiddo who is considered to be low functioning.I think this book does a great job of giving an overview of cognitive development, and does give some ideas for moving a child with learning challenges along. However, I would also like to emphasize that it is primarily geared towards children who are higher functioning...in many cases, higher functioning enough to where their main struggles are in a mainstream general education classroom. There are a few brief phrases that are addressed to the parents of lower functioning children, and I would like to highlight what I consider to be the best piece of advice relating to that:"Always remember that the harder it is for a child to do something because of a weakness, the more patient you want to be, the more fun you want to make practicing, and the more initial success your child needs." Greenspan, pg. 145. My experience in the past 5 years with our little man has shown me when you have a child who takes years to progress through stages other children may pass through in weeks or months, you have to remember that you are in a marathon and not a sprint. He has to fight so hard for things that come automatically to a normally developing child, and perhaps your kiddo does as well.This book gives a bit of an over view of floor time and how it can be used to move a child with learning difficulties forward. I think DIR floortime is a great method, and I have used it myself with my son, however, there are times where there is no way I can make something fun for him because he hates it so much, and he just has to be moved forward, which is where ABA can be useful I think. Take for example scribbling. I tried everything. Bath crayons, so that a perhaps illicit surface might tempt him more. Pretty much every type of marking device geared towards toddlers on the market. Hates it, to this day, and usually will only do it if reinforced with a reward immediately afterwards. There isn't a single positive emotion I have to work with there. So, I do think floortime is awesome, but there may be cases with a lower functioning child in particular where you may not be able to get them to work on something using this approach, so it can be useful to have some other therapeutic approaches in your tool bag. And a lot of the ideas on this book are based on pretend, and for us anyways, at age 5, we still don't have pretend play, and you may not either.I also think that their overview of sensory processing issues is definitely not adequate to meet the needs of most parents with kiddos who have sensory challenges. "Building Bridges Through Sensory Integration" is a good book, and I think "The Out-of-Sync Child" has some good guidance as well if you have a kiddo who reacts strongly to certain sensations, or not strongly enough. Sensory integration therapy is very important for kiddos with these challenges when it comes to helping them to progress developmentally. I remember when our son first started OT around 17 months of age, the first session or two he dropped a 4 pound therapy ball on his foot and didn't even flinch his deep pressure was so under responsive. Just this past weekend we were at the park and another kiddo was throwing a water bottle and it hit our son in the face, and he sat and wailed for 5 minutes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy he got hurt, but it is super hard having a child not respond to certain harmful stimuli, and it's a beautiful thing when they can be moved forward into a place that looks closer to normalcy. And other things, he had super strong aversive reactions to and it was pretty crippling to functioning in anyway that looked like a normal life. And I know sensory issues can be a common problem for children with learning disabilities, so I feel like more information on that would have been beneficial to this book.Otherwise, I do think the information is useful even for a parent of a lower functioning child. It's good to know what the stages are and in what order, and to have some ideas that will help you support his or her progress towards the next stages, however long it may take to get there. And on that basis, I do think it's a worthwhile read, but if you are a parent of a kiddo with more involved challenges, you will need to be reaching for other resources as well.

After taking several Stanley Greenspan Online Courses, I bought this book to follow along. I found it very helpful in my learning about developmental disabilities in children and ways to deal with these concerns. I would recommend this book to ANYONE wanting to learn more about developmental delays or those working closely with children with developmental concerns.

Highly informative and a completely different (and accurate) way, to consider learning challenges.

came on time, super book, full of practical ideas

Great book and resource.

Is an excellent guide for therapists and ,parents and everyone who wants to increase comunication and development in children with special needs.Maria Jose Silva Z.Speech Phathologist.Universidad de Chile.

Very helpful

This book is a must read for parents, teachers, psychologists, and anyone working with kids or wanting to acquire knowledge about learning differences.

Very helpful. Strongly recommend for any parents and proffessional from SEN area

Tihs is a great professional book. It will help me a lot with my work as an SLP. I would recommend it.