Memoirs Special Needs

When Judith Newman shared the story of how Apple's electronic personal assistant, Siri, helped Gus, her son who has autism, she received widespread media attention and an outpouring of affection from listeners around the world. Basking in the afterglow of media attention, Gus told anyone who would listen, "I'm a movie star". Judith's story of her son and his bond with Siri was an unusual tribute to technology. While many worry that our electronic gadgets are dumbing us down, she revealed how they can give voice to others.

Desperate to alleviate her son's constant rages and their crushing toll on the family, Donnie Kanter Winokur comes up with an innovative, untested, four-pawed solution: a golden retriever service dog named Chancer. Chancer is specially trained to give Iyal a unique love he desperately needs. But in this true-life tale infused with moments of despair, tenderness, and humor, Chancer turns out to be what the entire family has needed to stay - and grow - together.

Challenging surprises often lead to unexpected joy. Amy Julia opens eyes and softens hearts as she brings listeners into her own story of disappointment turned to blessing. This is a journey of discovering strength through weakness, and the author learns to embrace the face that we are all dependent on God and one another. This books will inspire listeners who appreciate beautiful writing coupled with deep insights about life and faith.

In a single moment in time, Garret Frey was transformed from an active and energetic four-year-old to a quadriplegic, ventilator-dependent boy who struggled to make sense of a world in disarray. For seven years, Garret worked with Clinical Psychologist Dr. Karen Pirnot as Garret learned that his mental powers could help compensate for the loss of body function. As I Am details the struggles of Garret's mother to advocate for a "normal" childhood education for her son.

When Jenny Lexhed and her husband have their first child Lucas, they are living the dream. They're happily married, they've just bought a house, the company they built together from the ground up is starting to blossom. But with the arrival of their son, a feeling of anxiety slips into their life. What starts as a feeling becomes a conviction.

For both adults and kids, there is an epidemic going around. And no, I’m not talking about COVID. I’m talking about ADHD. In this book, you’ll learn how meditation can help children and adults focus and concentrate, calm their body and mind, and live happier and more peaceful lives. Hopefully, after learning the techniques in this book, we can turn that attention deficit into an attention surplus.

In Everything Is Going to be K.O. Kaiya Stone writes about her own experiences of living with specific learning difficulties: from struggling at school to being diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia while at university, to performing her own one-woman stand up show inspired by her journey. Always funny and unfailingly honest, Kaiya outlines the frustrations of having SPLDS but also the ways in which they have fuelled her creativity.

Andrew, 8, is autistic and bilingual. He speaks English and Chicken. With words limited by autism, Andrew lives in a fantastic world where chickens talk and superheroes come alive. But when he tells his pet chicken Frightful that his body is trying to kill him, it launches Andrew's family and an entire medical community into a decade-long quest for answers. This beautiful, fierce, and refreshingly honest memoir takes listeners on a mother's journey through the complex landscape of modern medicine to discover the healing bond between a boy and Frightful, the chicken who saves them all.

For Magda Newman, normal was a goal—she wanted her son Nathaniel to be able to play on the playground, swim at the beach, enjoy the moments of childhood that are often taken for granted. But Nathaniel's severe Treacher Collins syndrome—a craniofacial condition—meant that other concerns came first. Could he eat without the aid of a gastrointestinal tube? Could he hear? Would he ever be able to breathe effortlessly?

The Underdogs tells the story of Karen Shirk, felled at age 24 by a neuromuscular disease and facing life as a ventilator-dependent, immobile patient, who was turned down by every service dog agency in the country because she was "too disabled". Her nurse encouraged her to tone down the suicidal thoughts, find a puppy, and raise her own service dog. Karen did this, and Ben, a German shepherd, dragged her back into life.

At the age of thirty, just as everything was falling into place for him, Lee Pesky died of brain cancer. For his father, Alan, grief came with the realization that he had lost the chance to love Lee as he was—not as he wanted him to be. Ambitious, successful, and always striving for more, Alan had a hard time relating to a son who struggled with learning disabilities at a time when there was little understanding or help for kids who had them. Their relationship was complicated, and now, Lee was gone.

We all know the fairy-tale. An everyday girl meets her Prince Charming, they get married, have children and ride off into the sunset. Sadly, this isn't always the case and Christine McGuinness is keen to change the stereotype that marriage, fame and fortune brings an easy and blissful life. This is Christine's first audiobook, where she tells the world her life story for the very first time. While telling her story, Christine was diagnosed with autism, as revealed in this book for the very first time.

This is my story. After a lifetime of trying to help everyone else get their lives together, I have finally figured out how to get mine together. I am now 72 years old, semi-retired from a business I created to help young adults with autism function in the world. I live in Mexico with my loving partner. I have fulfilling relationships with my adult children and grandchildren.

What do you do when you wake up in your mid-40s and realize you've been living a lie your whole life? Do you tell? Or do you keep it to yourself? Laura James found out that she was autistic as an adult, after she had forged a career for herself, married twice and raised four children. Odd Girl Out tracks the year of Laura's life after she receives a definitive diagnosis from her doctor, as she learns that 'different' doesn't need to mean 'less' and how there is a place for all of us, and it's never too late to find it.

February 29th is a date that comes into existence just once every four years. It is also the birthday of Thais - author Anne-Dauphine Julliand's darling daughter - who died of a genetic disease. Thais lived just shy of her fourth birthday. She had a short life but good one. As this special day is about to reappear on her calendar for the first time since her daughter passed away, Anne-Dauphine struggles with how to mark this momentous occasion. She wants to live fully on this special day: Thais would have been eight years old.

A sacred journey through grief, healing, and rediscovering life after loss. For 25 years, John and Carla Miller dedicated their lives to loving and caring for their son, Peter Flint Miller—a special needs child who could not walk, talk, or eat without assistance, but whose life overflowed with joy, laughter, and purpose. Every four hours, around the clock, they fed him, changed him, bathed him, dressed him, and prayed over him. And then, one day, it all stopped. Room to Breathe, Room to Grieve is their honest, faith-filled story of what happens after the caregiving ends—after the ...

An unflinching and luminous memoir that explores a father’s philosophical transformation when he must reconsider the questions what makes us human? and whose life is worth living? Before becoming a father, Chris Gabbard was a fast-track academic finishing his doctoral dissertation at Stanford. A disciple of Enlightenment thinkers, he was a devotee of reason, believed in the reliability of science, and lived by the dictum that an unexamined life is not worth living. That is, until his son August was born.

All Janine Urbaniak Reid ever wanted was for everyone she loved to be okay so she might relax and maybe be happy. Her life strategy was simple: do everything right. This included trying to be the perfect mother to her three kids so they would never experience the kind of pain she pretended not to feel growing up. What she didn’t expect was the chaos of an out-of-control life that begins when her young son’s hand begins to shake.

Andreas Souvaliotis was raised at a time when being on the autism spectrum wasn't easily diagnosed or even discussed. Minds like his were simply considered odd. He also knew from an early age he was gay, and it terrified him as he was growing up with openly homophobic parents in one of Europe's least tolerant societies. Andreas' differences made him an outsider, right through to his mid-40s. And then suddenly, everything changed. Misfit is the extraordinary memoir of a man who realized there was strength in his strangeness, that it could be used as a force for good.

The world Annette Hines knew exploded when her infant daughter Elizabeth was diagnosed with mitochondrial disease—a degenerative, life-limiting illness. Annette’s joy quickly turned to apprehension and she knew nothing would ever be the same again. Butterflies and Second Chances is the inspiring true story of a mother’s special needs journey, and her struggle to secure the best possible life for her child in the face of bureaucratic resistance and marital crisis. It is a story of sacrifice, dedication, and the life-altering adjustments a special needs parent has to make when ...