The Bottom Line
By Robbie Woliver; 463 pages. Subtitle: From ADD to Zellweger Syndrome - A Guide to Developmental, Neurobiological and Psychological Disorders for Parents and Professionals.
"Alphabet soup" is what parents often call all those overlapping, tangled up, interrelated diagnoses that are hard to discern one from the other. If you're searching for an answer, or trying to choose from too many, this book can help you sort out the possibilities ... or maybe make you more confused.
Pros
- Gives straightforward, parent-friendly information on more than 70 disorders
- Demonstrates how much overlap there is between quite a number of them
- Includes resources for finding out more about any of these diagnoses
- Easy to look up a specific diagnosis
- May introduce you to some alphabet soup you haven't heard of before
Cons
- A cross-reference of symptoms would have been helpful
- Not all diagnoses have the same variety and depth of information
- Some of the more obscure disabilities sound a little dubious
- Reading it straight through may make you less likely to embrace labels instead of more
- Omits the alphabet diagnosis I most look for information on: FASD
Description
- A: ADD/ADHD, AN, APD, AS, AS, AS, ASD
B: BED, BN - C: CA, CAD, CAS, CBD, CCS, CD, CD, CDCS, CDD, CdLS, CLS, CMT, COS, CS
- D: DGS, DPD, DS, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, Dyslexia, Dystonia
- E: ED, EDS, ERLD
F: FXS - G: GAD
H: HPD, HS, HTD
L: LD, LKS, LNS - M MCSS, MD, MR, MSDD
N: NLD
O: OCD, ODD - P: PAPD, PD, PD, PDD, PDD-NOS, PPD, Pica, PKU, PWS
R: RAD, RS - S: SAD, SAD, SID, SLD, SLOS, SM, SMS, SPD, SPLD, STPD
- T: TS
W: WD, WS
X: XXYS
Z: ZS - Resources: General Resources; Autism Resources; Eating Disorder Resources; Learning Disability Resources
Guide Review - Book Review: Alphabet Kids
You can probably tell how you'll feel about Alphabet Kids just by looking at the title. If you're one who believes that children today get too many labels, and that all these initials represent the patholigization of childhood, then the very idea of calling children "Alphabet Kids" should set you off, long before you come upon dubious-sounding ailments like Clumsy Child Syndrome or Dependent Personality Disorder.
On the other hand, if you long for an explanation for your child's confusing jumble of symptoms and hope that the right diagnosis will open the door to treatments and services, you'll find this to be a useful resource for investigating things you've heard of and considering things you haven't.
Woliver stands against those who complain that alphabet-soup diagnoses are given too freely, asserting that most of these ailments, the familiar ones and the unfamiliar, are in fact underdiagnosed. He hopes to help families find the answers they need, with lists of symptoms and case studies and descriptions of diagnosis and treatment for more than 70 disorders.
It would have been nice to have a cross-reference of those symptoms that overlap the most, to lead parent-investigators more easily to the descriptions they need. Also, to have had some consistency from entry to entry -- some are much more detailed than others. And most of all, I wish there'd been room for the diagnosis that made the difference for my personal Alphabet Kid, FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder), a classic grab-bag disorder. Still, the book is a pretty good place to start when looking for answers, or, depending on your point of view, something to worry too much about.
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