Cynthia Ann Bowman – författare

Today, traditional illnesses and high risk behaviors of adolescents have become interrelated through the multitude of physical, social and emotional changes young people experience. Good literature which gives adolescents the truth has incredible power to heal and to renew. This reference resource provides a link for teachers, media specialists, parents, and other adults to those novels that can help adolescents struggling with health issues. Educators and therapists explore novels where common health issues are addressed in ways to captivate teens. Using fictional characters, these experts provide guidance on encouraging adolescents to cope while improving their reading and writing skills.With the advancement in medicine, traditional types of health issues such as birth defects, cancer, and sensory impairment have shifted to more behavior related problems such as depression, alcoholism, and eating disorders. All of these issues and others are examined from both a literary and psychological perspective in thirteen chapters that explore health issues through fiction. Each chapter confronts a different health issue and is written by a literature specialist who has teamed up with a therapist. In each novel, these experts define the central character's struggle in coming to terms with an issue and growing in response to their difficulties. Annotated bibliographies of other works, both fiction and nonfiction, explore these same issues give readers insight into helping teenagers with similar problems, and provide the tools with which to get teenagers reading and addressing these problems.

Written for young people with disabilities and the people who care for and educate them, this unique resource offers both inspiration and advice to help disabled teenagers successfully meet the special social and academic challenges of high school and to find their paths into the future. Compiling a wealth of expertise on a range of issues in high school and all the accompanying major life events, this edited volume offers guidance, support, experience, and encouragement, providing everything from explanation of legal rights to guidance on effective study habits. Through the voices of disabled students and their teachers and family members, the book provides insights into the internal dilemmas that students face as well as problems they may encounter in the classroom, at home, and in society. This book is written to offer tools that empower students with disabilities face their challenges while providing educators, family members and friends insights into issues these students may encounter during their high school years. Every high school teacher, administrator, counselor, and librarian should familiarize themselves with the issues explored on these pages.The book is divided into five topical sections that each addresses a set of related issues. Section I provides a history of disabilitities across different times and cultures and a discussion of the legal rights of students with disabilities. Section II discusses the cultural and social issues disabled teens face in modern society and looks at representations in film and literature. Section III is devoted to the many interactions and relationships faced in high school, including dating, socialization, and extracurricular activities. Section IV addresses issues related to academic success and the concluding chapter offers tools for advocacy and empowerful. Appendicies complete this multi-facted volume with lists of additional readings and on-line resources for students with disabilities.

Disability is rarely considered a social issue. Scholars tend to discuss it in the abstract; medical personnel view it as a health issue; and legal concerns for the disabled focus on how to advocate or protect organizations against demands for accommodation. As a result, disabled individuals are seen as bits and pieces of everyone's constituency but their own. The writers of this work, both having long personal experiences with disabilities, offer a holistic understanding of the lives of disabled individuals from representations in the media to issues of civil rights.Written to educate and inform readers about the social roles of disability, this accessible and informative work addresses: social classifications of disability; social reactions to disability; legal rights and classifications of persons with disabilities; issues of accessibility to information and communication technologies; representations of disability in a range of media, including literature, painting, film, televsion and advertising; and major issues shaping the comtemporary social roles of persons with disabilities. By examining the social roles of disability in the past and present from a range of perspectives and disciplines, this book reveals a portrait of the social place, limitations, and rights of persons with disabilities.