According to a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Cohen "moved child psychiatry into the biological era, but he continued to put emphasis on the psychological and social aspects affecting child development".[1] According to the Yale Bulletin, Cohen made "groundbreaking contributions in biological psychiatry, clinical care and the development of international collaborations in child psychiatry".[2] As a "pioneer" in autism and Tourette syndrome research, he proposed treatments for TS which "opened new avenues to treating and understanding the disorder".[2] His colleague Andrés Martin said his work with autism "was in large part devoted to understanding and listening to those same individuals who had been written off as incapable of communicating meaningfully and to following the string of their social communicative mishaps to their deepest core".[5]