Special Education in Contemporary An Introduction to Exceptionality, Seventh Edition offers a comprehensive, engaging, and readable introduction to the dynamic field of special education. Grounded in research and updated to reflect the most current thinking and standards of the field, this book provides readers with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs that are crucial to constructing learning environments that allow all students to reach their full potential. Authors Richard M. Gargiulo and Emily C. Bouck encourage a deep awareness and understanding of the "human" side of special education, providing readers with a look into the lives of exceptional students and their families, as well as the teachers that work with exceptional persons throughout their lives.
Also available as a digital option (courseware). Learn more about Special Education in Contemporary Society-Vantage Digital Option, Seventh Edition [ 978-1-0718-2599-0]
*dabs* I cant believe I actually read this textbook all the way through
this textbook but also this class (Special Education) was a JOY. I ADORED taking this this semester and it's definitely been one of my favorite classes I've taken. Highly recommend taking an intro to special ed if you can cause it's a joy!
This is a textbook, so naturally the writing can seem dry. I enjoyed this book, however, and found it highly informative and incredibly useful. I feel it was most applicable for elementary education, and while it touched on higher grades and adult life, the focus remained on elementary education.
The book calls itself "An Introduction to Exceptionality" and does indeed provide a solid introduction. It looks at people and their abilities, disabilities, strengths, and needs. It talks about students in the greater context of school, society, and families. It looks at programs, practices, laws, history, and educational considerations. Individual chapters focus on specific needs such as learning disabilities, emotional and behavioral disorders, ADHD, visual and hearing impairments, speech and language impairments, and physical disabilities, to name a few. The last chapter also focuses on another population with unique needs: gifted and talented students.
All in all, this is a very quality textbook and it is written at a level that is both well-informed and informative.
I read this textbook for my FIRST class about special education in college (yay!). This textbook reminded me of a high school textbook. The content was very self-explanatory and sometimes worded poorly. Overall, I didn't hate having to read this over the course of the semester as the material was incredibly easy, however, I also can't say that I learned much from this textbook either.
Pretty good as far as textbooks are concerned. The first section is very dry, but the chapters on the actual categories of disabilities are interesting and useful.
While this was a very thorough book, the lack of focus on secondary education was disappointing. I felt an elementary teacher can garner more from this book than a secondary teacher.