Families, Professionals, and Exceptionality

From the best-known authors in the field of family and professional collaboration—Families, Professionals, and Exceptionality: Positive Outcomes Through Partnerships and Trust is a practical look at how teachers and families can empower, collaborate, and advocate for children with special needs. In this book, the authors enter the lives and tell the stories of families they consider “forces for the disability cause,” and “exemplars of all that is good, decent, generous, steadfast, and optimistic.” Here readers see how lasting partnerships can be formed between members of families and professionals in special and general education. The authors, widely recognized authorities in the field of family and professional collaboration, present strong depictions of family systems theory, the history and current status of policy, and the principles of partnership and their application by teachers and other professionals. Included is invaluable practical advice for educators—and true ways to apply these principles on the job.

Features new to this edition include: NEW! Six families are featured, rather than four. NEW! A Marine Corps family is highlighted. NEW! An increased emphasis on the older individual with a disability and the role families continue to play in their lives. NEW! A family’s entire life span is portrayed, from preschool and kindergarten through adulthood. NEW! An emphasis on cultural diversity includes coverage of an African American family, a Hispanic American family, and four white families, one of which is a single parent family. NEW! More disabilities are portrayed than in previous editions, including coverage of students with physical, intellectual, and other developmental disabilities, and multiple disabilities.