Meet Jenny — a teen who confides in her diary about what it is like to live with Ezra, her younger brother with autism, and her life with the most "wacky, exasperating, infuriating, amazing younger brother! If living with Ezra weren't hard enough, Jenny must deal with school bullies, rude classmates, and fragile friendships. But with the promise of a summer writing program and an Ezra-inspired project, Jenny finds the courage to be more than just "Ezra's sister, protector, defender, and his best and only friend," and loosens the invisible cord just enough to follow her own dreams. Includes a Note to Readers.

Ezra looks like any other sixth grader with faded jeans, turned around cap and a mess of chestnut curls. You see, my brother is like any other eleven-year-old...except when he isn't. Autism, The Invisible Cord follows 14-year-old Jenny as she describes her day-to-day life with her younger autistic brother, Ezra. Ezra can be both her best friend as well as her biggest obstacle to living a ""normal life,"" and Jenny often finds herself stuck worrying about her younger brother. Through taking care of Ezra and a very special school project, Jenny ends up learning about her own character and strengths, and a way to shine despite everything else.

Subtitle on cover: A young girl's view of her brother's autism.

Includes steps to write a similar book, personalized for a child with autism.

This is the story of Zane, a zebra with autism who worries that his differences make him stand out from his peers. With careful guidance from his mother, Zane learns that autism is only one of many qualities that make him special. Contains a “Note to Parents” by Drew Coman, PhD, and Ellen Braaten, PhD, as well as a Foreword by Alison Singer, President of the Autism Science Foundation.

The down and dirty world of one autism mom's journey from sex-ed to Santa...

Jason, a twelve-year-old autistic boy who wants to become a writer, relates what his life is like as he tries to make sense of his world.

"Simple things aren't always so simple. In fact, simple things are often the most difficult." In A Sibling's Guide to Autism, 16-year-old Irene Kim explains to her younger sister what it is like having a brother with autism. Having grown up with her autistic twin brother, Irene has figured out how to manage the ups and downs; she would now like to share what she has learned with other younger siblings. Irene writes A Sibling's Guide to Autism in hopes that she can be the older sister that she never had-for Skylar and for any other sibling out there who wants to be understood.

We are defined by our faces. They give identity, but, equally important, reveal our moods and emotions through facial expression. So what happens when the face cannot move? This book is about people who live with M bius Syndrome, which has as its main feature an absence of movement of the muscles of facial expression from birth. People with M bius cannot smile, frown, or look surprised or sad. Talking and eating are problematic, since their lips do not move. Even looking around is also difficult since the eyes cannot move either. The book is unique in giving those with M bius a voice, allowing children and adults with the condition to explain what it is like. These fascinating biographies reveal much about the relation between face and facial expression, and emotional expression and emotional experience which we normally take for granted. The narratives also show the creative ways in which those with M bius construct their lives and how they come to terms with and express their identities with, and yet, beyond their faces. Some with M bius have been thought to have learning difficulties and autism, since an impassive immobile face has been assumed to reflect inner cognitive problems. This book criticizes such work and asks people to look not only at the face but beyond it to see the person. Throughout the book, several themes emerge, of which perhaps the most surprising is the reduced emotional experience those with M bius can have as children and young adults and the journeys they go on as they realize this and then assimilate emotion from the outside in. The result of a 4 year collaboration between a clinician/neuroscientist and a teacher/lobbyist who lives with M bius, The Invisible Smile provides an authentic, personal and moving account of this disorder.

This book addresses important issues of speech processing and language learning in Chinese. It highlights perception and production of speech in healthy and clinical populations and in children and adults. This book provides diverse perspectives and reviews of cutting-edge research in past decades on how Chinese speech is processed and learned. Along with each chapter, future research directions have been discussed. With these unique features and the broad coverage of topics, this book appeals to not only scholars and students who study speech perception in preverbal infants and in children and adults learning Chinese, but also to teachers with interests in pedagogical applications in teaching Chinese as Second Language.