The inside story of the working life of an extraordinary guide dog.Guide dogs are carefully bred and trained to help their handlers live safely and independently. But what makes one dog truly exceptional?Life With Jefferson tells the true story of the remarkable partnership between Jefferson and Penny Leclair, a deafblind woman whose independence depended on finding the right guide dog. After two years of searching, Jefferson was chosen for his uni...

It is awe-inspiring to witness the relationship between a blind person and their loyal, hard-working, intelligent, and loving guide dogs. Of course, every guide dog and blind person is different, so their relationships are all different. This short illustrated book recounts twenty-one heart-felt stories about the relationships between blind people and their guide dogs. Some are funny, some are sad, some are ordinary, some extraordinary.  Most are awe-inspiring.  L...

The inside story of the working life of an extraordinary guide dog.Guide dogs are carefully bred and trained to help their handlers live safely and independently. But what makes one dog truly exceptional?Life With Jefferson tells the true story of the remarkable partnership between Jefferson and Penny Leclair, a deafblind woman whose independence depended on finding the right guide dog. After two years of searching, Jefferson was chosen for his uni...

The story that captivated a nation?how a horribly neglected little girl was rescued by her loving adoptive parentsIn July 2005, a six-year-old girl named Danielle was removed from her Florida home after authorities found her living in bug-ridden squalor, subjected to horrific neglect and so damaged by her own mother that recovery seemed hopeless. But hope was waiting for Dani?and help. In October 2007, Bernie and Diane Lierow, a hard-working couple with five boys o...

The shocking true story of the institutionalization and abuse of children and adults with intellectual and physical handicaps in Canada’s oldest provincial institution in Orillia, Ontario. Daisy Lumsden and her family were such victims, along with over ten thousand children, including infants, and adults with intellectual disabilities committed over the last century to the institution now known as Huronia Regional Centre, formerly the Asylum for Idiots and Feeble-Minded. The time frame of ...

A "heartwarming, life-affirming" memoir of a relationship with an intellectually disabled sibling: "Read this book. It might just change your life" ( Boston Herald).Beth is a spirited woman with an intellectual disability who lives intensely and often joyfully, and spends most of her days riding the buses in Pennsylvania. The drivers, a lively group, are her mentors; her fellow passengers, her community—though some display less patience or kindness than ot...

On his 18th birthday, Ryan Knighton was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), a congenital, progressive disease marked by night-blindness, tunnel vision and, eventually, total blindness. In this penetrating, nervy memoir, which ricochets between meditation and black comedy, Knighton tells the story of his fifteen-year descent into blindness while incidentally revealing the world of the sighted in all its phenomenal peculiarity. Knighton learns to drive while unseeing; has his first sig...

The Unmaking of Man is a series of four essays by Dr Simon Duffy exploring the lessons of the Holocaust for people with disabilities. Few people know that people with disabilities not only made up a large number of the victims of the Holocaust but they were the first victims, marked out for destruction at a very early stage. Doctors argued that people with disabilities lived lives not worth living and lobbied Hitler to start a programme of euthanasia. The technologies and approac...

The birth of a very premature baby is a shock for parents. The immediate anxiety about whether their infant will survive quickly leads to concerns about their child’s future quality of life. In this inspiring and informative book, young people who were born weighing less than two pounds, three ounces provide candid and personal stories about their lives, challenges and accomplishments. Now in their thirties, these men and women were cared for at McMaster University Hospital in Hamilton, Ontar...

Every few months there’s a shocking news story about the sustained, and often fatal, abuse of a disabled person. It’s easy to write off such cases as bullying that got out of hand, terrible criminal anomalies or regrettable failures of the care system, but in fact they point to a more uncomfortable and fundamental truth about how our society treats its most unequal citizens. In Scapegoat, Katharine Quarmby looks behind the headlines to trace the history of disability and our discomfort wit...

Rebecca loves her younger brother Joel, but sometimes she finds it hard to look after him – Joel has Down’s syndrome. One day, when Rebecca and Joel discover a ring of toadstools used by elves, they find themselves transported into a magical world in which Joel is the hero. Soon Rebecca discovers that her brother possesses very special qualities that she had not noticed before… Eons ago when the world was newborn, When the sun came up on the very first dawn, When the flowers and trees were...

Rehabilitation practitioners face the difficult task of helping clients adjust to chronic illness or disability. This can be a long and trying process for both practitioner and client. With this handbook, however, practitioners and students can gain a wealth of insight into the critical issues clients face daily.This book presents the dominant theories, models, and evidence-based techniques necessary to help the psychosocial adjustment of chronically ill or disabled persons. Each c...