Publications

Asperger Syndrome: A Guide for Professionals and Families, Second Edition

Since the first edition was published in 2003, an enormous amount of research into Asperger Syndrome (AS) and autism spectrum disorders has been conducted. New genetic and epigenetic theories, updated findings on viable therapies, and targeted skill-building programs provide a solid foundation of information for professionals to use in practice and impart to concerned families.

2ndEditionThe Second Edition of Asperger Syndrome synthesizes the current state of the field, beginning with the controversy over the proposed linking of the condition with autism in the DSM-5. This comprehensive guide gives readers a deeper understanding of the disorder, detailing the effective strategies and therapies available to improve the lives of young people with AS and ensure their successful transition from childhood to young people with AS and ensure their successful transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. Focusing on core deficit and treatment areas, expert contributors analyze the evidence base on behavioral and pharmacological interventions as well as educational strategies geared toward bolstering cognitive and social skills. In addition to epidemiology, etiology, diagnosis, and assessment, this volume offers the most current information on:

  • Counseling and other therapeutic strategies for children with AS and their families.
  • Early intervention for children and youth with AS.
  • Social skills instruction for children with AS.
  • Evaluating evidence-based instruction for children with AS.
  • Comprehensive education-based mental health services for students diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Practical advice for families, from a parent of a child with AS.
  • The Second Edition of Asperger Syndrome is an essential reference for researchers, clinicians, and scientist-practitioners in clinical child, school and developmental psychology; child and adolescent psychiatry; education; rehabilitation medicine/therapy; social work; and pediatrics.

For more information – or to obtain a copy of this book, follow the link below:
Springer Science+Business Media
Asperger Syndrome: A Guide for Professionals and Families, Second Edition

(12/20/2011):
Social Skills and Social Judgment Training

(12/20/2011):
The Learning Clinic Student Performance Assessment: A Result Based Classroom Accountability Rating
Form: Student Performance Assessment
The student’s role in the classroom involves many behavioral expectations in order for the student to function successfully. The Student Performance Assessment is a protocol designed for the classroom teacher that operationalizes classroom expectations in a format that enables the teacher to identify prerequisite skills under special categories of expectation for classroom performance. The assessment procedure enables educational professionals to develop baselines for individual students, rate skills, and monitor their performance over time. For a detailed explanation of definitions and applications of the principles behind the assessment, refer to Asperger Syndrome A Guide for Professionals and Families – Second Edition.

Survey Form: The Learning Clinic Pragmatic Skills Survey
This survey was developed to assess the level of pragmatic skill functioning for Asperger and High Functioning Autistic students in order to establish objectives and monitor changes over time. The TLC Pragmatic Skill Survey is designed to be useful to parents, professionals, and paraprofessionals who are involved with the care and treatment of children and youth who demonstrate deficits in social skills and pragmatic language.

Survey Form: Transition/Independent Living Skills Assessment (TILSA)
This survey was developed to assess the level of transition and independent living skill functioning for students and establish objectives and assess performance over time in The Learning Clinic’s Transition Program. The TLC Transition & Independent Living Skill Assessment (TILSA) is designed to be useful to parents, professionals, and paraprofessionals who are involved with the care and treatment of children and youth who demonstrate deficits in transition and independent living skills. The assessment data may be used to establish treatment objectives that are observable, modifiable, and measurable.

(03/03/2011) Clinical Role in the use of Cognitive Behavioral TherapyDr. Raymond W. DuCharme The Learning Clinic, Inc., Brooklyn, CT. USA

Press Release!
Brain’s Fear Center Shrinks in Autism’s Most Severely Socially-ImpairedWell Siblings Share Some of the Same Behavioral, Neural FeaturesNational Institute of Health (NIH) Press Release
TREATMENT & PREVENTION of DYSFUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOR in ADOLESCENTS DIAGNOSED within the CATEGORY of PERVASIVE DEVELOPMENTAL DELAY*
Dr. Raymond W. DuCharme & Dr. Kathleen A. McGrady The Learning Clinic, Inc., Brooklyn, CT. USA
Edited by: Gerald Adams, Ph.D., University Juelph, Ontario, Canada & Thomas P. Gullotta, C.E.O., Child and Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut, New London, CT
*Excerpt from: HANDBOOK OF ADOLESCENT BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS:
EVIDENCED-BASED APPROACHES TO PREVENTION AND TREATMENT (New Publication 2005)

Treatment and Prevention of Dysfunctional Behavior in Adolescents Diagnosed within the Category of Pervasive Developmental Delay is enriched with a wealth of data from the Raymond DuCharme’s work at The Learning Clinic, which points to an educational approach that is successful with youth with ADHD. It also includes an examination by Kathleen McGrady of counseling and other therapeutic strategies that are helpful to youth with ADHD and their families.

ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER: A Guide for Professionals and Families (2005)

Treatment and Prevention of Dysfunctional Behavior in Adolescents
Diagnosed within the Category of Pervasive Developmental Delay

Dr. Raymond W. DuCharme & Kathleen A. McGrady, Psy.D., ABDA

Treatment and Prevention of Dysfunctional Behavior in Adolescents Diagnosed within the Category of Pervasive Developmental Delay is a chapter excerpt from the new book Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, A Guide for Professionals and Families. This new volume was conceived as a Hartman Scholar’s program.

The Hartman Scholar programs identify an issue affecting children and their families for intensive study. Once an issue has been selected for study, a search is undertaken to identify leading scholars and practitioners working in that area. Raymond DuCharme and Kathleen McGrady have been selected to be part of this group. To be a Hartman Scholar is demanding, entailing two weekend study groups over a period of one year, with individual study occurring between meetings. The product of this year-long collaboration will be the volume from which this chapter is an excerpt.

This chapter is enriched with a wealth of data from the Raymond DuCharme’s work at The Learning Clinic, which points to an educational approach that is successful with youth with ADHD. It also includes an examination by Kathleen McGrady of counseling and other therapeutic strategies that are helpful to youth with ADHD and their families.

ASPERGER SYNDROME: A Guide for Professionals and Families

Dr. Raymond W. DuCharme – The Learning Clinic, Inc., Brooklyn , CT. USA

Thomas P. Gullotta – Child and Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut, New London , CT , USA

ASPERGER SYNDROME: A GUIDE FOR PROFESSIONALS AND FAMILIES integrates the latest evidenced-based research from leading scholars and examples from those working with this population in non-university settings with personal practical advice from a mother whose adolescent has Asperger Syndrome and from a young man who has Asperger Syndrome.

Asperger Syndrome is a life-long condition that requires long-term planning, treatment, and medical intervention. Early diagnosis and treatment may lead to minimizing the impact of the Asperger Syndrome at each development stage. Asperger Syndrome: A Guide for Professionals and Families provides effective perspective on each type of intervention and assists those making key decisions at critical developmental and education times in the life of the Asperger Syndrome person. The authors rely on the most current research evidence and clinical experience to provide a realistic appraisal of the most significant aspects of Asperger Syndrome.

Notable features include:

  • An analysis of the most current research literature,
  • A model for a new approach to diagnosis, treatment, education, and long-term planning,
  • An ecological, task analytical view of educating the person with an Asperger Syndrome diagnosis,
  • Social skills and social issues such as victimization,
  • The diagnosis and treatment of Asperger Syndrome persons with dual-diagnosis,
  • An analysis of the later life issues for intervention,
  • A personal view from a person with an Asperger Syndrome diagnosis.
  • Asperger Syndrome: A Guide for Professionals and Families provides information and guidance to parents, educators, diagnosticians, and therapists on best practice approaches to Asperger Syndrome.

For your reference, noted below is the Preface excerpt from Asperger Syndrome: A Guide for Professionals and Families:

Preface
aspergeres syndromeEvery book has not one but many stories to tell as readers bring their life experience and unique personal interpretation to the works found on those written pages. For Tom Gullotta, this book began unknowingly some nineteen or so years ago with the adoption of his three-week-old son. Bernie’s inexhaustible energy, excitability, and precocious self-centered nature had created by kindergarten a record already inches thick. To this history still more feet of documentation, conflicting opinions, and frankly, anguish would be added before the words Asperger Syndrome (AS) were first mentioned at age fourteen. Tom suspects that many readers with children or other loved ones with AS have had similar experiences.

For Raymond DuCharme, this book is part of a long search for ways to help children and their families. He states:

Children teach us a great deal about ourselves, and fragile children teach us to be thoughtful about our effects on them. A child’s reaction mirrors our sensitivity, or our lack of sensitivity.

Children with AS are among the most fragile children. They are most reactive to what they are not prepared to do. They have taught me that I must use their signals to adjust my expectations, and to tap their potential. They have taught me to use the evidence that they provide to help them do what they most wish – to be as accepted and as successful as their peers.

From these different journeys, this volume was conceived as a Hartman Scholar’s program. Nearly a decade since its inception, Hartman Scholar programs identify an issue affecting children and their families for intensive study. Once an issue has been selected for study, a search is undertaken to identify leading scholars and practitioners working in that area. To be a Hartman Scholar is demanding, entailing two weekend study groups over a period of one year, with individual study occurring between meetings. The product of that year-long collaboration is the volume before you.

The eight chapters that follow cluster into three untitled sections. The first, consisting of four chapters, provides readers with a comprehensive overview of the syndrome. In Chapter 1, Raymond DuCharme and Kathleen McGrady examine the etiology of AS and address the confusion that surrounds diagnostic issues pertaining to it. In Chapter 2, Brenda Myles examines the evidence-based literature and identifies programs that show promise. In Chapter 3, Raymond DuCharme provides a comprehensive overview of instructional studies. This review is enriched with a wealth of additional data from the author’s work at The Learning Clinic, which points to an educational approach that is successful with youth with AS. In Chapter 4, the first section concludes with an examination by Ann Wagner and Kathleen McGrady of counseling and other therapeutic strategies that are helpful to youth with AS and their families.

The second grouping of chapters focuses on two critical issues affecting youth with AS. Chapter 5 by Lisa Little examines the risk these young people face for victimization and strategies toward reducing that risk. In Chapter 6, Peter F. Gerhardt explores the subject of transition support for learners with AS from childhood into adulthood. He identifies several areas in which substantial work remains to be undertaken if the lives of these deserving individuals are to be maximized.

The final grouping of chapters are of special importance. Chapter 7 by Sherry Moyer and Sheryl Breetz offers not only practical advice from the mother of a young person with AS but also provides a case study in how transitional housing and support services can be developed for young people as they “age out” of the education system. Chapter 8 by Stephen Shore is a positive, hopeful, often times humorous accounting of Stephen’s life with AS. In a conversational tone that connects with the experiences of individuals with AS and their families, this remarkable young man helps all of us to understand AS much better.

We offer this book to policymakers, educators, practitioners, and graduate students, but most of all to individuals with AS and the families of individuals with AS. We hope that policymakers will use the lessons found in this volume to craft laws and funding opportunities that serve this underserved and often unrecognized population. We hope that educators and practitioners apply the scant knowledge that is available and join us in calling for intensified efforts to develop evidence-based services for individuals with AS. We hope that this work serves as a motivational starting point for students to undertake badly needed research to improve the dearth of knowledge in this area. But most of all, we offer this book to the Bernies who live with AS every day of their lives and to their parents who love them so dearly. May this book not only offer some hope but inspire you to speak out on behalf of all with AS.

Raymond W. DuCharme
Thomas P. Gullotta
For more information – or to obtain a copy of this book contact:
Springer Science+Business Media
Asperger Syndrome: A Guide for Professionals and Families