Victoria Lynn Hayden, known as Torey L. Hayden (born May 21, 1951 in Livingston, Montana), is a child psychologist, special education teacher, university lecturer and writer of non-fiction books based on her real-life experiences with teaching and counselling children with special needs.[1]
Subjects covered in her books include autism, Tourette syndrome, sexual abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome, and elective mutism (now called selective mutism), her specialty.
Hayden attended high school in Billings, Montana and graduated in 1969. She then attended Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. She received a Master's in Special Education from Montana State University Billings in 1975 and went on to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis where she studied for a doctorate in educational psychology. While there, she also worked with the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the university hospitals.
A little time after having written her most famous book One Child, Hayden moved to Wales in 1980 and got married to a Scot called Ken two years later. In 1985, she gave birth to her daughter Sheena. Hayden is now divorced.[2]
When in the UK, she has worked primarily with charities associated with child neglect and abuse, including Childline, the NSPCC, the Samaritans and the Citizens' Advice Bureau.
She has also written three books of fiction in addition to her non-fiction books (see below).