Hans Asperger

Hans Asperger
Asperger performing a psychological test on a child at the University Pediatric Clinic, Vienna, c. 1940.
Born	February 18, 1906 Vienna, Austria–Hungary
Died	October 21, 1980(1980-10-21) (aged 74) Vienna
Known for	Discovery of Asperger syndrome
Profession	Physician
Institutions	University Children's Hospital, Vienna University of Vienna
Specialism	Pediatrics
Research	Autism

Hans Asperger (February 18, 1906 – October 21, 1980) was an Austrian pediatrician, after whom Asperger syndrome (AS) was named. He wrote over 300 publications, mostly concerning autism in children.

Biography

Hans Asperger was born on a farm in Hausbrunn, just outside of Vienna. He was the elder of two sons. In his youth he showed particular talents for language, frequently quoting Franz Grillparzer He had difficulty finding friends and was considered a lonely, remote child. Asperger studied medicine in Vienna and practiced at the University Children's Hospital in Vienna. He was conferred doctor of medicine in 1931 and assumed directorship of the play-pedagogic station at the university children's clinic in Vienna in 1932. He married in 1935 and had five children.

In the later years of World War II he was a medical officer in Croatia; his younger brother died at Stalingrad. In 1944, after the publication of his landmark paper describing autistic symptoms, he found a permanent tenured post at the University of Vienna. Shortly after the war ended, he became director of a children's clinic in the city. He was appointed chair of pediatrics at the University of Vienna, a post he held for twenty years. He later held a post at Innsbruck. Beginning in 1964, he headed the SOS-Kinderdorf in Hinterbrühl. He became professor emeritus in 1977.

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. It was not until 1989 that his reports were translated into English. Unlike Kanner, Hans Asperger's findings were ignored and disregarded in the English-speaking world in his lifetime. Finally, from the early 1990s, his findings began to gain notice, and nowadays Asperger syndrome is recognized as a diagnosis in many countries of the world.

Asperger syndrome

Main article: Asperger syndrome

Hans Asperger published a definition of Asperger syndrome in 1944 that was nearly identical with the definition that a Russian neurologist Grunya Sukhareva (Груня Ефимовна Сухарева) had published already in 1926. Hans Asperger identified in four boys a pattern of behavior and abilities that he called "autistic psychopathy," ( Die "Autistischen Psychopathen" im Kindesalter). The pattern included "a lack of empathy, little ability to form friendships, one-sided conversations, intense absorption in a special interest, and clumsy movements." Asperger called children with AS "little professors" because of their ability to talk about their favorite subject in great detail.

Asperger noticed that many of the children he identified as being autistic managed to use their special talents in adulthood and had an excellent career. One of them became a professor of astronomy and solved an error in Newton’s work he originally noticed already as a student. Asperger’s positive outlook contrasts strikingly with Leo Kanner's description of autism, of which Asperger's syndrome is often considered to be a high-functioning form. In his 1944 paper, as Dr. Uta Frith translated it from the German in 1991, Asperger wrote:

“

We are convinced, then, that autistic people have their place in the organism of the social community. They fulfil their role well, perhaps better than anyone else could, and we are talking of people who as children had the greatest difficulties and caused untold worries to their care-givers.

”

Near the end of World War II, Asperger opened a school for children with autistic psychopathy, with Sister Victorine Zak. The school was bombed towards the end of the war, Sister Victorine was killed, the school was destroyed and much of Asperger's early work was lost.

As a child, Asperger himself appeared to have exhibited features of the condition subsequently named after him. He was described as a lonely and remote 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. He also liked to quote himself and often referred to himself from a third-person perspective.

One of Asperger's patients was Austrian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Elfriede Jelinek.

Asperger's birthday, February 18, was declared International Asperger's Day by Aspergers Services Australia and is observed by various autism-related organizations.

Papers

• Asperger H (1938). "Das psychisch abnormale Kind [The psychically abnormal child]" (in German). Wien Klin Wochenschr 51: 1314–7. 
• Asperger H (1944). "Die "Autistischen Psychopathen" im Kindesalter [Autistic psychopats in childhood]" (in German). Archiv für psychiatrie und nervenkrankheiten 117: 76–136.  http://www.springerlink.com/content/u350x0683r1g6432/
• Asperger H (1968). "[On the differential diagnosis of early infantile autism]" (in German). Acta Paedopsychiatr 35 (4): 136–45. PMID 4880461. 
• Asperger H (1974). "[Early infantile autism]" (in German). Med Klin 69 (49): 2024–7. PMID 4444665. 
• Asperger H (1977). "[The lived life. 50 years of pediatrics]" (in German). Padiatr Padol 12 (3): 214–23. PMID 331197. 

External sources

• Brighthub mental health articles about Asperger
• Paains story about Asperger
• AspergersAwareness
• Osborne L (2002). American Normal: The Hidden World of Asperger Syndrome. Copernicus. p. 19. ISBN 0-387-95307-8.