Empowering Students with Hidden Disabilities: A Path to Pride and Success

How can you empower students with invisible disabilities to manage their challenges, accept and advocate for themselves, and reach their goals and dreams? This guidebook has inspiring and informative answers. Told with the authentic voices of adults with hidden disabilities, this encouraging, eye-opening book will help you guide students on the path to disability pride and support their success in the classroom and community. Personal stories blend with powerful strategies as the authors share reflections on their experience with disability - and offer up practical teaching tips and interventions based on the latest research. An essential resource for educators, families, and self-advocates, this book will help students with non-visible disabilities dare to dream big and unlock their full potential.

DISCOVER HOW TO

• promote disability pride within students, schools, and communities
• Teach critical life skills, including social-emotional, executive function, reading, and coping skills
• reduce the stigma of hidden disabilities
• develop mentoring programs that connect students with advice and encouragement
• assist college students as they navigate the challenges of campus life and classes
• prepare young adults to launch fulfilling careers and responsible, self-determined adult lives
• help students develop authentic and meaningful relationships with others
• support students with a range of hidden disabilities, including ADHD, learning disabilities, autism, and emotional and behavioral disturbance

PRACTICAL MATERIALS: A helpful ""Path to Disability Pride"" framework that readers can use to track their own path to pride or help advocate for someone else's; ready-to-use Teaching Tips for the classroom; candid stories from and interviews with people who have hidden disabilities.

Margo Vreeburg Izzo, Ph.D., is Professor and Director for the Special Education and Transition Program at the Ohio State University Nisonger Center. She has extensive experience designing and directing projects that improve the transition from high school to college and careers with funding from the U.S. Department of Education, National Science Foundation, and numerous state agencies and foundations. Dr. Vreeburg Izzo has developed educational curricula for students with disabilities; conducted numerous trainings, focus groups, and interviews with teachers and students; managed the development of websites, videos, and other dissemination products; and published over 25 peer-reviewed articles and five book chapters on disability and transition issues. In 1996, she received the Mary E. Switzer Fellow from the National Institute of Disability Rehabilitation Research. As Past President of the Division of Career Development and Transition, she provides leadership to national, state, and regional committees to improve the quality of education and transition services. Also, she is a mother, wife, grant writer, and a person with ADHD. She believes that when people with hidden disabilities can exercise self-determination in choosing their path to college and career, they are more likely to succeed. The challenge, addressed in this book, is how to achieve these goals in today's high stakes testing environment. In the pages to come, learn more about Margo's life with ADHD and her personal and professional mission to help all people with hidden disabilities lead meaningful lives.

LeDerick Horne, labeled as neurologically impaired in third grade, defies any and all labels. He's a dynamic spoken-word poet. A tireless advocate for all people with disabilities. An inspiring motivational speaker. A bridge-builder between learners and leaders across the U.S. and around the word. An African-American husband and father who serves as a role model for all races, genders, and generations. The grandson of one of New Jersey's most prominent civil rights leaders, LeDerick uses his gift for spoken-word poetry as the gateway to larger discussions on equal opportunity, pride, self-determination, and hope for people with disabilities. His workshops, keynote speeches, and performances reach thousands of students, teachers, legislators, policy makers, business leaders, and service providers each year. He regularly addresses an array of academic, government, social, and business groups and has had appearances at the White House, the United Nations, Harvard University, the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, and the Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Alabama State Departments of Education. His work addresses the challenges of all disabilities, uniting the efforts of diverse groups in order to achieve substantive, systemic change. You can learn more about LeDerick and his work at www.lederick.com.

Bill Bauer, Ph.D. is a Professor of Education at Marietta College, a small rural liberal arts school located in the rolling hills of southern Appalachian, Ohio. Bill has a sensorineural bilateral hearing loss, yet a severe hearing impairment has not held him back. He was a former elementary school teacher, school principal, and superintendent. His Ph.D. is in rehabilitation counseling, and he has a private practice at a local hospital and serves as a consultant to many disability-related organizations regarding transition and lifespan development. He completed post-doctoral work at the Ohio State University Nisonger Center and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the People First Association. Bill contributed greatly to this book's final chapter, as it incorporates his many years of experience in working with youth, adults, and families with hidden disabilities as well as physical disabilities, sensory impairments, and mental health conditions.