SEE ME MORE CLEARLY: Career & Life Planning for Teens with Physical Disabilities

Mitchell's guide for disabled teenagers differs from Haskins and Stifle's The Quiet Revolution (1979) in its second-person approach: this is written not to inform on the general situation but as an aid in planning a career and life within the limits of ""your"" particular situation. Thus Haskins gives us a tougher assessment of chances and of discrepancies between law and reality. But Mitchell's 284-page handbook is loaded with specific suggestions: a list of needs on which blind students should inform their teachers (and another for the deaf); a list of sports available to people with different disabilities; a list of questions (some quite sophisticated) to ask about whatever tests you will be subjected to--plus a descriptive list of the standard tests themselves (""As it stands now, testing for most physically disabled students does more harm than good""); points cerebral palsy victims must consider in career planning (this checklist, which includes the exhortation to assess ""perceptual capacity,"" seems drawn from a guide for counselors, not their young clients); and advice on whether and how to tell people that you are epileptic. Also included are more general discussions of stereotyped jobs (not all disabled people want to work in programs for the disabled), the need to accept one's limitations and cope with a new disability, the choice between mainstreaming and special schools, the importance of assessing and improving skills, and the advantage of knowing and asserting one's legal rights. There is far less useless mush here than in most career guidance books, and of course far more value for its targeted audience, who will find it indispensable simply for its attention to their special needs and its listing of further resources. Telling quotes from disabled individuals, many of them teenagers, add immediacy, readability, insight, and occasional humor.