Site of the Day

September 2008

Social networking is all the rage these days, and getting more specific: This one is just for "parents and professionals using dir/floortime for children with autism spectrum disorders, and other developmental disorders." You can exchange ideas through messaging, chat, and forums; post videos of techniques and stories of successes; and read blogs and news articles.

A "coach and professional speaker" share her story of living with Borderline Personality Disorder to help others with BPD and their families.

Your Saturday super-sized listing of amusements, including a family activity, a site for the kids, a shopping site, a site offering humor or inspiration about parenting children with special needs, and a site that's just silly or fun.

PLGA is "the largest, and only, non-profit organization dedicated to providing hope to children, parents, and families fighting Pediatric Low Grade Astrocytomas (PLGAs)." It's also the fulfilling organization behind Project Brain Child, one of the Top 25 projects competing for part of $2.5 million in American Express's Members Project.

September is ADHD Awareness Month, and ADDitude Magazine has put together an ADHD Information Center for the occasion, including handouts like "Snappy Comebacks to ADD Doubters" and "25 Things to Love About ADD."

If you've got a teen or tween who loves the Jonas brothers, and also has diabetes, this site should be worth a squeal or two. There's a blog by Nick Jonas, the brother with Type 1 diabetes; a song download that benefits the brothers' Change for the Children Foundation, which benefits diabetes camps among other causes; and a contest in which four winners get to meet Nick, be part of Team Jonas at the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes, and receive a year of one-to-one diabetes coaching (though not, alas, with Nick).

This easy-to-use site allows you to make your own worksheets to help your child practice printing. You'll find instructions for single-word, multi-word, or paragraph worksheets, which can be printed out and saved for other students to use, too. Try setting one of these up with words your child is particularly interested in, obsessed with, or amused by, to make writing practice more fun and motivating.

There are 162 hospitals within 30 miles of my hometown. I don't know whether that's comforting, to know so much help is so close, or a little worrisome that I live in a sickly area. U.S. Hospital Finder doesn't provide that kind of info, but it does help you look up hospitals in your area -- by state, by alphabet, or by search -- and find maps, basic information, and web links to follow up on.

Your Saturday super-sized listing of amusements, including a family activity, a site for the kids, a shopping site, a site offering humor or inspiration about parenting children with special needs, and a site that's just silly or fun.