One in six children encounter significant problems while learning to read; some one million children are being treated for learning disabilities. There are many books that deal with their academic difficulties, but when it comes to the social isolation and peer rejection that these differently wired children so often experience, their parents and teachers are mostly left to cope on their own. Now, renowned educator Richard Lavoie offers practical, proven strategies to help these children learn to maintain friendships, resolve conflicts, and interpret non-verbal social cues. Written with warmth, empathy, and the authority that can only come from decades of experience with these issues, IT'S SO MUCH WORK TO BE YOUR FRIEND will enlighten and empower anyone who cares for or works with these hard-to understand children.

Author Biography

Richard Lavoie, M.A., M.Ed., has worked as a teacher and headmaster at residential special education facilities for the past thirty years. He holds three degrees in special education and serves as a consultant to several agencies and organizations. The father of three adult children, he lives with his wife in Barnstable, Massachusetts. He welcomes visitors to his website at www.ricklavoie.com Mel Levine, M.D., is professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina Medical School and director of its Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning. He is the founder and cochairman of All Kinds of Minds, a nonprofit institute for the understanding of differences in learning, and the author of two previous national best-selling books, A Mind at a Time and The Myth of Laziness. He and his wife, Bambi, live on Sanctuary Farm in North Carolina.