Shirley Cohen's Targeting Autism: What We Know, Don't Know, and Can Do to Help Young Children with Autism and Related Disorders offers a comprehensive and objective examination of the key areas of autism. The subsequent review of this book will thus offer a concise overview of the book, with a special focus on specific areas that can be highly useful to educators. Furthermore, the impact of the book on my views as an educator will also be presented.
Divided into three parts, this book first introduces readers to the unique characteristics of autism by defining it from professional and parental perspectives. While the standard definition of autism provided by the DSM-IVù"severe and pervasive impairment inà reciprocal social interaction skills, communication skills and the presence of stereotyped behavior, interests and activities" (APA, qtd. in Cohen 4) introduces the professional perspective, Cohen offered a more vivid and powerful account by introducing the descriptions of parents with autistic children. These parents' depictions of their children's tendency to move away from people, their failure to make emotion connections through their eyes, their utilization of speech as a ritual rather than communication, as well as their obsessions with light bulbs or spinning (Cohen 5-6) enable Cohen to paint the picture of autism that is authentic, accessible and meaningful to parents, as well as special needs educators.
After this powerful introduction, Cohen then identified the key characteristics of the spectrum of disorders that lie on the autistic spectrum, which can account for the variability of the characteristics of autism in different children (20-32). With this basic understanding, educators will realize the importance of not imposing the same educational programs on the students, simply based on their diagnosis of autism. Just as importantly, Cohen's provision of a lifespan perspective of the condition and discussio...