Donald Cohen named Sterling Professor of Child Psychiatry

Donald J. Cohen, M.D., who specializes in neuropsychiatric disorders of children, including autism, Tourette’s syndrome and attention disorders, recently achieved one of Yale’s highest distinctions when he was named Sterling Professor of Child Psychiatry.

A child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, he joined the Yale School of Medicine faculty in 1972 and has directed the Yale Child Study Center since 1983.

Cohen’s clinical and research interests also focus on the interaction between biological and experimental factors in the emergence and treatment of psychiatric disorders, the early roots of personality development, the impact of psychosocial disadvantage on children, national policy for children and adolescents and the impact of acute and persistent stress on children’s development.

He is co-author or co-editor of a dozen books, including Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders, The Many Meanings of Play in Child Psychoanalysis, Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives from Autism and Tourette’s Syndrome and Associated Disorders. He has written more than 300 articles on neuropsychiatric childhood disorders.