Author:Dr Valerie Muter,Dr Helen Likierman
Many children spend their entire school lives struggling with their school work. Research has shown that at least 10-15 per cent of children with apparently normal learning ability will have a significant problem with school learning. They may feel that whatever they do it is not good enough - either for their parents, their teachers or indeed themselves. This can often result in feelings of demoralisation, and even alienation from learning and school. This book aims to address these issues and to help parents understand and deal with them.
Dyslexia: A Parents' Guide starts by correcting common misconceptions of learning difficulties that are rife in the press and popular literature, and addresses the conflicting approaches and advice from 'experts'. This authoritative guide then moves through diagnosis – with information on dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, discalculia and more – to offering practical and easy tips to enable parents to help their child overcome their learning difficulty.
Both authors are practising psychologists with extensive knowledge and experience of children's learning difficulties. They will show parents how to develop a successful approach to assessing and subsequently managing their child's difficulties.
A small masterpiece, much to be recommended
—— Daily TelegraphBlackburn has written an exceptionally perceptive and fascinating book, a tribute by a remarkable daughter to the resilience of filial love
—— Sunday TelegraphA stunningly written memoir
—— Sunday TimesThe Three of Us contains all the mental and physical violations that cling to the bare bones of their shared past... Blackburn was never afraid of her father. It's very clear in the book - he is described even at his blackest moments with affection and warmth
—— GuardianBlackburn's first 16 years sound quite frankly too bad to be true. Nightmarish infact - though she details them in such an ingenuous, matter-of-fact manner that she somehow manages to make terrible events seem almost funny.... the resulting memoir is mesmerising and brilliant
—— Daily MailDespite the darkness of the rooms she re-enters, her book isn't gloomy in the least... Extracts from her journal and faxes to Herman offset the main narrative, which darts back and forth in time. It's a structure that works wonderfully well... However unforgiving her detail, tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner is the message of this extraordinary book
—— Blake Morrison , GuardianHaving read her family memoir, a book that engrosses and horrifies in equal measure, it is hard not to be reminded of Larkin's famous axiom: 'They fuck you up your mum and dad.'... 'Blackburn's writing transcends the frightening idiosyncrasies of her upbringing. Her prose is understated and evocative, despite the desperate truths that lurk beneath.'... 'It would be easy for Blackburn to attribute blame or to seek explanation, but her refusal to do so gives this triptych portrait an integrity and honesty that it could otherwise lack.
—— ObserverThe fact that I was unable to put [the book] down is proof of how well she tells [the story], and of how such an experience, if described with real skill, honesty, and sensitivity, will make a valuable book, however many others of a similar kind have been published.... I ended it feeling very glad indeed that I had overcome my first disinclination to begin it
—— Diana Athill , Literary Review[Blackburn] has written an exceptionally perceptive and fascinating book, a tribute by a remarkable daughter to the resilience of filial love.
—— Anne Chisholm , Sunday TelegraphIn this memoir she describes her eccentric, dangerous, wonderful bohemian parents...Blackburn emerged from this turmoil as a fine writer, and this book is full of understanding and reconciliation
—— Margaret Drabble , New Statesmana rich account...brilliant vignettes
—— Camilla Long , Sunday TimesThis piercing memoir paints in vivid colours Julia Blackburn's nightmarish childhood
—— Alison Flood , The TelegraphBlackburn tells us about these things in a compelling authorial voice which is by turns numb and incredibly sensitive
—— William Leith , Evening StandardBrutally honest book ...deeply moving testament to the love that can somehow survive
—— Aimee Shalan , GuardianAn extraordinary family memoir... A bohemian classic
—— Week