In 1944 just a year after Dr. Leo Kanner’s landmark paper, Australian pediatrician Dr. Hans Asperger published his observations.
They were of children with social difficulties, intense focus on specific interests and unusual use of language.
He labeled the condition “autistic psychopathy,” a term which, at the time, was not associated with the modern meaning of “psychopath,” but rather, referred to a personality type (Asperger, 1944).
In fact, autism is quite different from psychopathic personality disorder.
For instance, to easily manipulate people, the psychopath needs to be skilled at reading social cues and body language.
Unlike Dr. Kanner, Dr. Asperger described kids with average to high intelligence and strong verbal skills, though they struggled with social interaction and empathy – or as we now know, the expression of empathy.
He emphasized their logical thinking, special talents and how they often appeared to lack common sense.
Those special talents don’t refer to savant-grade ability, but rather, giftedness or exceptionally high aptitude in at least one area.
Using my autistic self as an example, from about age five I began drawing people: face and body.
It had never occurred to my literal-thinking autistic brain to draw people as “stick figures,” or faces as circles. Below is a drawing I made at age six.
©Lorra Garrick
Differences Between Asperger and Kanner
While both Dr. Kanner and Dr. Asperger described what we now call autism spectrum conditions, their subjects differed in key ways:
- Kanner’s children typically had delayed speech and more apparent developmental difficulties.
- Asperger’s children spoke fluently but had awkward or overly formal language. They might even be referred to as “little professors.”
Interestingly, Dr. Asperger’s work went largely unnoticed in the English-speaking world for decades.
His paper was written in German and published during World War II, making it inaccessible to most Western clinicians until it was translated in the 1980s.
Overlooked Ethics and Controversy
In the more modern era, historians have revisited Dr. Asperger’s legacy using a more critical lens.
Evidence had emerged that he may have cooperated with Nazi medical policies, including referring disabled kids to institutions where they were euthanized (Czech, 2018).
This has led to growing discomfort with using his name to describe a diagnosis, such as Asperger’s syndrome, Aspergian or Aspie.
The Birth of Asperger Syndrome
Despite the controversies, Dr. Asperger’s work laid the groundwork for what would later become the diagnosis of Asperger syndrome, added to the DSM-IV in 1994.
His descriptions helped broaden the understanding of autism as a spectrum rather than as a single condition.
Next: Part 4 in this 10-part series: 1960s Autism Research: Behaviorism and Early Models
