Still feeling in a bookish mood, I surfed over to Amazon.com this morning to see if I might be able to find special-needs books on something other than ADHD at a bookseller with an even greater selection than the monster-mega bookstore down the highway. I clicked my way to the parenting special needs section, and then considered the categories offered: "Hyperactivity" was, of course, full of ADHD books; "Disabilities" was ... full of ADHD books (not to deny that it's a disability or anything, but if it has its own category, shouldn't it be out of this one?); and, finally, "General," which turns out to be the place to find books on special needs that are not ADHD (although a smattering of them crept in here, too).
I'm happy to report that, at least at the moment I checked in this morning, the top best-seller among general special-needs parenting books was The Out-of-Sync Child, supporting my hunch that within the next few years, sensory integration disorder will be the new ADHD. Of course, there's only one SI book making much of an impact on bookshelves, as opposed to about 7,000 ADHD books, but surely that will change in time. Other books in the top 10 included two on Asperger syndrome, two on autism, one on explosive kids, one on defiant kids, two (natch) on ADHD, and one called The Child Whisperer, which claims to offer "a gentle approach to improving self-esteem and confidence." If they make it into a movie with Robert Redford, then maybe I'll give it a look.
Friday, May 3, 2002
Special needs reads
