The foreword of our book is written by Karen Gaffney. Karen Gaffney is a 29 year old woman with Down syndrome. Karen recently (Oct. '07) swam across Lake Tahoe in just 6 hours!
The introduction is written by Lawrence Leichtman, MD. Dr. Leichtman is a Board Certified Pediatrician and Clinical Geneticist. He travels around the US and gives lectures and also has clinics where he sees patients with Down syndrome.
The book is going to be a comprehensive book covering all subjects, from the basics of Down syndrome (Genetics of Trisomy 21, History, etc), to medical topics, such as information on the heart and the various heart defects which can happen, and other medical concerns in DS, to the subject of Targeted Nutritional Intervention (TNI). We will have a section on nutrition. A chapter on Breastfeeding is in the book, because it is a very important topic and extremely beneficial for babies with Down syndrome, in particular. Another chapter in the book is on the subject of speech, with multiple articles written by speech therapist, Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson from TalkTools. We also have a chapter on Neurodevelopmental Programs with articles written by Kay Ness, Cyndi Ringoen & Linda Kane, who are all Neurodevelopmentalists. We also have a section on Early Intervention and have articles written by physical therapist, Pat Winders & occupational therapist Maryanne Bruni.
We also have a section on adoption. This section covers several families adoption stories, both in the US & internationaly. It also has a page of adoption resources.
The book also has a chapter that includes the Down Syndrome Medical Guildelines.
The last, but certainly not least, chapter in the book are stories from & about individuals with Down syndrome who have either accomplished a great feat or just are an adult/older child with Down sydnrome and how they live their life. The first submission to this section is a story written by Brenda Scott (Chrisopher's mother) about Christopher Scott. Christopher Scott is the young man who recently starred in the movie, "My Brother." The title of this section is "Life Stories."
In several chapters of our book we included stories from mothers, fathers, siblings, and grandparents of their child with Down syndrome. The stories are about the diagnosis of DS (either prenatally or after birth), TNI and how it has affected the child, heart surgery and how the child's surgery went, breastfeeding and what worked to help the child nurse or what had to be done.
We are also, of course, including pictures of individuals with DS throughout the book and on the cover of the book.
The above gives a general idea of what is in our book and what the focus of the book is.
We were hoping to get the book published earlier in the year, but we have had some delays due to various circumstances that came up. At this point, we plan to publish the book through a self-publishing company called LuLu (lulu.com). Through LuLu they have a distributing program which we will use to distribute our book to Borders, Barnes & Nobles, Amazon, etc. Once our book is completed we will also make flyers about the book to give to hospitals and such to get the word spread. We are hoping to give our book to doctors and other professionals as well.
Feel free to email with any questions!