Anna's Silent World (review)

Reviews 30,000 Selected Words Organized by Letter, Sound, and Syllable, Valeda D. Blockcolsky, Joan M. Frazer, and Douglas H. Frazer, 598 pp., $8.00 soft bound, $12.00 hard bound, Communication Skill Builders, Inc., 815 E. Broadway, Tucson, Ariz. 85733, 1979. It is amazing how some people can realize a simple gap in our reference tools that should have been generally recognized years ago. Here is a list of words organized in such a way as to provide building blocks for increasing complexity of stimuli that the creative clinician can apply to a variety of special needs. The major flaw is the assumption that syllabification is independent of stress. That is, while the authors list "prattle" and "preschool" as bisyllabic words, their stress patterns set them off into very distinct categories. This fault can be found throughout the book and requires thoughtful clinical selection of stimulus items. It would also have been helpful if the authors had listed a separate section of prefixes and suffixes to aid the busy clinician in quickly lengthening root words into more complex stimuli. This book is also overpriced. At $8.00 soft bound, it is an expensive paper bound book, and the content does not justify such pricing. However, these faults do not negate this volume as a good resource book for ready reference that many will find a useful addition to their book shelves. Virginia Morse, M.A. Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital Philadelphia, Pa. 19102 Language Remediation and Expansion, Catherine S. Bush, M.A., CCC, 203 pp., $15.00, Communication Skill Builders, Inc., 815 East Broadway, P.O. Box 42050, Tucson, Ariz. 85733, 1979. Jjanguage Remediation and Expansion is a much needed collection of list of examples; it contains everything from rhyming words through antonyms and analogs to topics for stories and stories for improvisation. It includes irregular verbs, homophones, scrambled sentences, and seven pages of riddles. These are arranged along with 92 others in order of difficulty and indexed by skill. The book contains objectives and examples of ways that each of the lists can be used. Teachers will find, here, a ready and seemingly endless supply of examples in each category . They can be used in teacher made games, learning centers, and in oral and written exercises . It is a source of extra practice material for those children who need additional examples. This book is a ready reference for any teacher of elementary language arts. Jan C. McKnight New Carlisle Bethel Schools New Carlisle, Ohio 45344 Anna's Silent World, Bernard Wolf, 48 pp., $6.95, J. B. Lippincott Company, E. Washington Square, Philadelphia, Pa. 19105. Having just read "Anna's Silent World," I found it to be extremely well done photographically . However, once more we have a book which re-emphasizes and gives false hope to parents that have deaf children. The book talks about Ann's ability to talk and to lipread, her speech therapy, and her amplification . However, it does not talk about her communication realistically. It portrays Anna as a very well-adjusted child mingling with her hearing classmates, although she has a 90 decibel loss and wears two hearing aids. She is limited in her ability to interact freely as a child. As a parent myself looking at the pictures of Anna, I see a sad little girl who has minimal skills. The only communication that she has is on a one-to-one basis. Much unrealistic emphasis is placed on the music and recording, and as the final blow: "Anna's favorite present is a recorder. Now she can add her own music to the sounds of her silent world." Once more we have a publication to tell the world how good the oral method is from a hearing person's point of view. This book will add much to the confusion of parents whose children are deaf. It will provide for them false hope and heartache while imposing unattainable goals for their children. Helen Powers Danbury, Conn. Never Too Young: Lexington Parent Series, Virginia Stern, photographs by Robert Kaplan, 110 pp., $4.95, Lexington School for the Deaf, 30th Ave. and 75th St., Queens, N.Y. 11370, 1975. This is the first...