A Different Sort Of Normal

Download or read book A Different Sort of Normal written by Abigail Balfe and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2021-07-22 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'I REALLY love it. Buy it for your kids, your parents, your grandparents. Mostly buy it for yourself' Holly Smale, author of the Geek Girl series 'This book is what I needed as a kid! Empathetic, joyful and beautifully authentic. I loved it!' Elle McNicoll, author of A Kind of Spark *The beautiful true story of one girl's journey growing up autistic - and the challenges she faced in the 'normal' world* I'm not like the other children in my class . . . and that's an actual scientific FACT. Hi! My name is Abigail, and I'm autistic. But I didn't know I was autistic until I was an adult-sort-of-person*. This is my true story of growing up in the confusing 'normal' world, all the while missing some Very Important Information about myself. There'll be scary moments involving toilets and crowded trains, heart-warming tales of cats and pianos, and funny memories including my dad and a mysterious tub of ice cream. Along the way you'll also find some Very Crucial Information about autism. If you've ever felt different, out of place, like you don't fit in . . . this book is for you. *I've never really felt like an actual-adult-person, as you'll soon discover in this book... 'Funny, fascinating . . . a rewarding and highly entertaining read' Guardian Told through the author's remarkable words, and just as remarkable illustrations, this is the book for those who've never felt quite right in the 'normal' world.

Download or read book Back to Normal written by Enrico Gnaulati, PhD and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A veteran clinical psychologist exposes why doctors, teachers, and parents incorrectly diagnose healthy American children with serious psychiatric conditions. In recent years there has been an alarming rise in the number of American children and youth assigned a mental health diagnosis. Current data from the Centers for Disease Control reveal a 41 percent increase in rates of ADHD diagnoses over the past decade and a forty-fold spike in bipolar disorder diagnoses. Similarly, diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder, once considered, has increased by 78 percent since 2002. Dr. Enrico Gnaulati, a clinical psychologist specializing in childhood and adolescent therapy and assessment, has witnessed firsthand the push to diagnose these disorders in youngsters. Drawing both on his own clinical experience and on cutting-edge research, with Back to Normal he has written the definitive account of why our kids are being dramatically overdiagnosed—and how parents and professionals can distinguish between true psychiatric disorders and normal childhood reactions to stressful life situations. Gnaulati begins with the complex web of factors that have led to our current crisis. These include questionable education and training practices that cloud mental health professionals’ ability to distinguish normal from abnormal behavior in children, monetary incentives favoring prescriptions, check-list diagnosing, and high-stakes testing in schools. We’ve also developed an increasingly casual attitude about labeling kids and putting them on psychiatric drugs. So how do we differentiate between a child with, say, Asperger’s syndrome and a child who is simply introverted, brainy, and single-minded? As Gnaulati notes, many of the symptoms associated with these disorders are similar to everyday childhood behaviors. In the second half of the book Gnaulati tells detailed stories of wrongly diagnosed kids, providing parents and others with information about the developmental, temperamental, and environmentally driven symptoms that to a casual or untrained eye can mimic a psychiatric disorder. These stories also reveal how nonmedical interventions, whether in the therapist’s office or through changes made at home, can help children. Back to Normal reminds us of the normalcy of children’s seemingly abnormal behavior. It will give parents of struggling children hope, perspective, and direction. And it will make everyone who deals with children question the changes in our society that have contributed to the astonishing increase in childhood psychiatric diagnoses.

Download or read book Some Kind of Normal written by Juliana Stone and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WHAT IS NORMAL? For Trevor, normal was fast guitar licks, catching game-winning passes, and partying all night. Until a car accident leaves him with no band, no teammates, and no chance of graduating. It's kinda hard to ace your finals when you've been in a coma. The last thing he needs is stuck-up Everly Jenkins as his new tutor—those beautiful blue eyes catching every last flaw. For Everly, normal was a perfect family around the dinner table, playing piano at Sunday service, and sunning by the pool. Until she discovers her whole life is a lie. Now the perfect pastor's daughter is hiding a life-changing secret, one that is slowly tearing her family apart. And spending the summer with notorious flirt Trevor Lewis means her darkest secret could be exposed. This achingly beautiful story about two damaged teens struggling through pain and loss to redefine who they are—to their family, to themselves, and to each other—is sure to melt your heart. Praise for Boys Like You: "The classic miscommunications, the emotional pushing and pulling, the "will she?" and "won't he?" of the destined-to-be-in-love. Readers of Miranda Kenneally, Jenny Han, and Susane Colasanti will enjoy Stone." —VOYA "The story handles challenging subjects like sex, drunk driving, and faith after tragedy in a sensitive and age-appropriate way ...just what readers need." —School Library Journal

Download or read book Normal People written by Sally Rooney and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOW AN EMMY-NOMINATED HULU ORIGINAL SERIES • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • “A stunning novel about the transformative power of relationships” (People) from the author of Conversations with Friends, “a master of the literary page-turner” (J. Courtney Sullivan). “[A] novel that demands to be read compulsively, in one sitting.”—The Washington Post ONE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY’S TEN BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: People, Slate, The New York Public Library, Harvard Crimson Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation—awkward but electrifying—something life changing begins. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other. Normal People is the story of mutual fascination, friendship, and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find that they can’t. WINNER: The British Book Award, The Costa Book Award, The An Post Irish Novel of the Year, Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, Oprah Daily, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Vogue, Esquire, Glamour, Elle, Marie Claire, Vox, The Paris Review, Good Housekeeping, Town & Country

Download or read book Different--A Great Thing to Be! written by Heather Avis and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This joyful rhyming book encourages children to value the “different” in all people, leading the way to a kinder world in which the differences in all of us are celebrated and embraced. Macy is a girl who’s a lot like you and me, but she's also quite different, which is a great thing to be. With kindness, grace, and bravery, Macy finds her place in the world, bringing beauty and laughter wherever she goes and leading others to find delight in the unique design of every person. Children are naturally aware of the differences they encounter at school, in their neighborhood, and in other everyday relationships. They just need to be given tools to understand and appreciate what makes us “different,” permission to ask questions about it, and eyes to see and celebrate it in themselves as well as in those around them.

Download or read book Normal Sucks written by Jonathan Mooney and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confessional and often hilarious, in Normal Sucks a neuro-diverse writer, advocate, and father meditates on his life, offering the radical message that we should stop trying to fix people and start empowering them to succeed Jonathan Mooney blends anecdote, expertise, and memoir to present a new mode of thinking about how we live and learn—individually, uniquely, and with advantages and upshots to every type of brain and body. As a neuro-diverse kid diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD who didn't learn to read until he was twelve, the realization that that he wasn’t the problem—the system and the concept of normal were—saved Mooney’s life and fundamentally changed his outlook. Here he explores the toll that being not normal takes on kids and adults when they’re trapped in environments that label them, shame them, and tell them, even in subtle ways, that they are the problem. But, he argues, if we can reorient the ways in which we think about diversity, abilities, and disabilities, we can start a revolution. A highly sought after public speaker, Mooney has been inspiring audiences with his story and his message for nearly two decades. Now he’s ready to share what he’s learned from parents, educators, researchers, and kids in a book that is as much a survival guide as it is a call to action. Whip-smart, insightful, and utterly inspiring—and movingly framed as a letter to his own young sons, as they work to find their ways in the world—this book will upend what we call normal and empower us all.

Download or read book The Other Side of Normal written by Jordan Smoller and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-05-08 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Psychiatry has ignored the normal. The focus on defining abnormal behavior has obscured what turns out to be a more fundamental question—how does the biology of the brain give rise to the mind, which in turn gives rise to everything we care about: thoughts, feelings, desires, and relationships? In The Other Side of Normal, Harvard psychiatrist Jordan Smoller shows us that understanding what the mind was designed to do in the first place demystifies mental illness and builds a new foundation for defining psychiatric disorders—from autism to depression. Smoller argues there are no bright lines between normal and abnormal. Psychiatric disorders are variations of the same brain systems that evolved to help us solve the challenges of everyday life. How do we become who we are? Smoller explains where our personalities come from, and how the temperaments we had as infants actually stay with us into adulthood. Why do we choose to date, love, and marry the people we do? Why do some of us form healthy relationships while others form unstable ones? Our relationships are shaped by the biology that drives two imperatives: maternal-child bonding and child-parent attachment. Along the way, Smoller tackles an even greater question—what do we mean by "normal"?—as he explores the puzzles behind the epidemics of multiple personalities and koro, the shocking phobia that one's penis is shrinking. He also looks at the controversial history of psychiatric classification and the explosive debates over how much early experiences influence our minds and to what degree genetics affect our temperaments, personalities, and emotional lives. Throughout this examination, Smoller explores the hidden sides of such questions as: How are trust and love rooted in biology? How much does sexual attraction stem from biology rather than culture? And what can the scientific study of normal behavior tell us about what it means to be human? Based on the author's groundbreaking research and personal experiences treating psychological disorders, The Other Side of Normal changes the way we think about the human condition.