How to Compromise with Your School District Without Compromising Your Child: A Field Guide for Getting Effective Services for Children with Special Needs

The guide that every parent must have! Gary Mayerson has devoted his career in law to helping children with autism get the fair and appropriate education that they need and deserve. In this field guide, he brings parents up to speed quickly and efficiently on the ways educational bureaucracies work—or more importantly, don’t —for children with special needs. In addition to providing inside information on the "must-do’s" and "must don’ts" in advocating for your child in the educational system, there are also strategies on how to prepare for an IEP meeting, what to do when children don’t get crucial services, and how to avoid due process. Armed with solid information, parents will be empowered with all of the tools they need to advocate for their child’s education. The practical and straightforward approaches presented in this must-have guide are not only applicable to children with autism spectrum disorders, but to children with any disability.

Gary Mayerson is a 1979 graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center. In 2000, after 12 years as a commercial litigation partner with a well known Manhattan law firm, Gary withdrew from his partnership to start Mayerson & Associates, the first and only law practice in the country dedicated to representing children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders and related developmental disabilities.

To date, Gary and his staff have worked with hundreds of families in more than two-dozen states, as far away as Alaska. Gary also has consulted internationally and has presented at numerous national conferences and universities. Gary has testified before Congress on the subject of the federal IDEA statute and is the author of "How to Try an Autism Case," published in the June, 2003 edition of New Jersey Lawyer Magazine. Gary’s chapter, "Notes from the Front: The Current Wave in ABA Litigation," appears in Dr. Lovaas’ most recent book, Teaching Children with Developmental Delays (Pro-Ed 2003). Gary also wrote the foreword appearing in Science for Sale in the Autism Wars (SKF Books 2003).