TERRE HAUTE — Marylin Leinenbach will tell you she’s a mathematician, not a writer.
But that didn’t stop the Jasper native turned Indiana State University math professor from putting pen to paper to help her great-granddaughter, Leah Marie, 5, who has Down syndrome, learn math.
Leinenbach scoured the internet looking for books about teaching children with Down syndrome. She found many, but none of them dealt with math. The lack of math resources for children with Down syndrome and other differences didn’t sit well with Leinenbach, so she set out to fill the hole in the market with the book that she describes as “an act of love” for Leah Marie.
In the book, “Leah Marie and Her Down Right Perfect Path to Math,” Leinenbach, and her colleague, Anne Raymond from Bellarmine University in Louisville, chronicle a week Leinenbach spent with Leah Marie when she was 3 teaching her basic numbers and shapes. The two professors met in Jasper — halfway between Louisville and Terre Haute — and wrote the book at the Hampton Inn.
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