Hans Asperger

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Hans Asperger (February 18, 1906 – October 21, 1980) was the Austrian pediatrician after whom Asperger's Syndrome is named.

Born in Vienna, Asperger published the first definition of Asperger's Syndrome in 1944. In four boys, he identified a pattern of behavior and abilities that he called "autistic psychopathy," meaning autism (self) and psychopathy (personality disease). The pattern included "a lack of empathy, little ability to form friendships, one-sided conversation, intense absorption in a special interest, and clumsy movements." Asperger called children with AS "little professors" because of their ability to talk about their favourite subject in great detail.

He was convinced that many would use their special talents in adulthood. He followed one child, Fritz V., into adulthood. V. became a professor of astronomy and solved an error in Newton’s work he originally noticed as a child. Hans Asperger’s positive outlook contrasts strikingly with Leo Kanner's description of autism, of which Asperger's is often considered to be a high functioning form.

Ironically, as a child, Hans Asperger appears to have exhibited features of the very condition named after him. He was described as a remote and lonely child, who had difficulty making friends. He was talented in language; in particular he was interested in the Austrian poet Franz Grillparzer whose poetry he would frequently quote to his uninterested classmates.

Asperger died before his identification of this pattern of behaviour became widely recognized because his work was mostly in German and little-translated. The first person to use the term "Asperger's Syndrome" in a paper was British researcher Lorna Wing. Her paper, Asperger's syndrome: a clinical account, was published in 1981 and challenged the previously accepted model of autism presented by Leo Kanner in 1943.

International Asperger's Year, 2006, marks the 100th anniversary of Dr. Asperger's birth and the 25th anniversary of Dr. Wing's landmark paper. International Asperger's Year was conceived by the Asperger Adults of Greater Washington.

1 Further reading
2 Papers
3 See also
4 External links

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Papers

Asperger, H. (1944), Die 'Autistischen Psychopathen' im Kindesalter, Archiv fur Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, 117, pp.76-136.
Asperger, H. (1968), Zur Differentialdiagnose des Kindlichen Autismus, Acta paedopsychiatrica, 35, pp.136-145.
Asperger, H. (1979), Problems of Infantile Autism, Communication, 13, pp.45-52.

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