Many parents enter meetings with teachers, administrators or school officials with guns a blazing, ready for a fight before there is even a need for one. However, as Jeffrey Cohen explains, the relationship between schools and parents of children with autism spectrum disorders doesn t have to be confrontational. The book offers practical advice on how to work closely with schools to build a team to help and support the child in dealing with the challenges of schooling. Throughout the book, teachers, administrators, professionals and many parents contribute ideas and offer advice on topics ranging from home schooling to transition plans to college.
Jeffrey Cohen started life as poor street urchin, orphaned and taken in by a gang of pickpockets led by an older man named Fagin. No, wait. That's someone else, entirely.
In reality, Cohen was born in Newark, NJ during a certain year, and grew (more or less) up in Irvington, NJ, otherwise known as the Garden Spot of the Western Hemisphere.
After a childhood of normal duration, Cohen attended Rutgers College in New Brunswick, New Jersey, so as to maintain a record of never having left the Garden State for more than two weeks at a time, something which has never been equaled (or attempted, by anyone else). He studied English (when actually attending classes and not lounging at the student newspaper office), but decided to work as a journalist anyway.
Finding work (after a fashion) at the Passaic Herald-News, he served as a municipal reporter for well over six months, establishing new lows in news gathering, but managing, in his final work for the newspaper, to quote Chico Marx.
Following a hideous foray into public relations, Cohen eventually became a trade journalist, covering the consumer electronics business until someone told him to stop.
Since 1985, he has been a freelance reporter and writer, writing for such publications as The New York Times, TV Guide, USA Weekend, Premiere, American Baby and The Newark Star-Ledger, among many others.
He is also the author of more than 20 feature-length screenplays, some of which are actually good. His work has been developed by Jim Henson Productions, CBS, Gross-Weston Productions, Ken Walz Productions and others.
Cohen lives in New Jersey (big surprise!) with his wife and two children, who have been sworn to secrecy.
