Hans Asperger's case studies: Whatever happened to them?

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Hans Asperger
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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 (aged 74)

Profession Physician
Institutions University Children's Hospital, Vienna
University of Vienna
Specialism pediatrics
Research autism
Known for Discovery of Asperger syndrome


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

Contents [hide]
1 Life
2 Asperger syndrome
3 Papers
4 External link
5 References

[edit] Life
Asperger studied medicine in Vienna and became employed as a member of the University Children's Hospital in Vienna. He married in 1935 and had five children.[1] Contemporary photographs show that he had "a frank, earnest face, glamorous in its way, with a full head of curly hair and intense spectacles".[2]

It is not certain what Asperger did during the early years of World War II [citation needed]. In the later years of the war he was a medical officer in Croatia; his younger brother died in Stalingrad.[1] 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 20 years. He also later held a post at Innsbruck. Then, beginning in 1964, he headed the SOS-Kinderdorf in Hinterbrühl.[citation needed]

[edit] Asperger syndrome
Asperger published the first definition of Asperger 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 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. It is commonly said[by whom?] that the paper was based on only four boys. However, Dr. Günter Krämer, of Zürich, who knew Asperger, states that it "was based on investigations of more than 400 children."[citation needed]

Asperger was convinced that many of the children he identified as having autistic symptoms would use their special talents in adulthood. He followed one child, Fritz V., into adulthood. Fritz 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 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.[3]
”

Near the end of World War II, Asperger opened a school for children with autistic psychopathy, with Sister Victorine. Unfortunately, the school was bombed towards the end of the war, Sister Victorine was killed, the school was destroyed and much of Hans Asperger's early work was lost. It was this event that arguably delayed the understanding of autism spectrum conditions in the west.[citation needed]

Interestingly, as a child, Hans Asperger himself appeared to have exhibited features of the very condition subsequently named after him. He was described as a remote and lonely child, who had difficulty making friends [citation needed]. 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 [citation needed]. He also liked to quote himself and often referred to himself from a third-person perspective.[1]

Asperger died before his identification of this pattern of behavior became widely recognized, because his work was mostly in German and barely translated. The term "Asperger's syndrome" was popularized in a 1981 paper by British researcher Lorna Wing, which challenged the previously accepted model of autism presented by Leo Kanner in 1943.[4] 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 a large part of the world.

One of Asperger's patients was Austrian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Elfriede Jelinek.[5]

Dr. Hans Asperger's birthday, February 18, has been declared International Asperger's Day and is observed by various autism-related organizations.[6]

[edit] Papers
Asperger H (1938). "Das psychisch abnormale Kind [The psychically abnormal child]" (in German). Wien Klin Wochenschr 51: 1314–7.
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.
[edit] External link
Meeting with Hans Asperger [1]
[edit] References
1.^ a b c Lyons V, Fitzgerald M (2007). "Did Hans Asperger (1906–1980) have Asperger Syndrome?". J Autism Dev Disord 37 (10): 2020–1. doi:10.1007/s10803-007-0382-4. PMID 17917805.
2.^ Osborne L (2002). American Normal: The Hidden World of Asperger Syndrome. Copernicus. p. 19. ISBN 0-387-95307-8.
3.^ Asperger H; tr. and annot. Frith U (1991) [1944]. "'Autistic psychopathy' in childhood". in Frith U. Autism and Asperger syndrome. Cambridge University Press. pp. 37–92. ISBN 0-521-38608-X.
4.^ Wing L (1981). "Asperger's syndrome: a clinical account". Psychol Med 11 (1): 115–29. doi:10.1017/S0033291700053332. PMID 7208735. http://www.mugsy.org/wing2.htm. Retrieved 2007-08-15.
5.^ Meyer, V., Koberg, R.: Elfriede Jelinek: Ein Porträt. Rowohlt 2006, p. 32
6.^ http://www.aagw.net/intyear.asp

Dr. Asperger did not believe women could exhibit the syndrome -

Supposedly, the Nazis had come across the "little professors" in the course of their grand scheme to create the Aryan Ubermensch, and were divided on how to proceed with them.

“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.[3]
”

I've heard that Asperger was tasked with his studies by the Third Reich's eugenics experts. The Nazis had an elaborate system to sift "undesirables" from "Aryans" and destroy the former, as we all know. Supposedly, the Nazis had come across the "little professors" in the course of their grand scheme to create the Aryan Ubermensch, and were divided on how to proceed with them.

Some, but not all, were Jews, which mystified the Nazis, who believed that Jews were a different, inferior species of human. The knowledge bases of the "professors" were deep but narrow, another odd trait, since Hitler taught that geniuses were geniuses in many things, not just one thing. Hitler himself was supposedly the archetype of the Aryan ubermensch, despite his very non-Aryan morphology, and Nazi propaganda continually painted a picture of him and other top leaders as superhumans.

Anyway, the Nazis couldn't decide whether the young males (they never noticed the females) should stay or go, so they asked Asperger to settle the question. He came down on the side of keeping them around, believing that their obsessions could make them useful to the Reich as perfectors of Nazi technology. Modernists wholeheartedly believed in the redemptive power of technology, and the Nazis had sorted knowledge into "Jewish" and "Aryan" fields of study. (They thought physics was Jewish, which might have cost them the war.) Asperger thought that by steering these little professors into Aryan fields of study, the Reich would benefit.

Alas, when Asperger's school was bombed, it's likely that most of his test subjects died. So that's likely what happened to them: They died when their school was bombed by the Allies.

Great find! Thanks for that. Haven't had time to read the whole article yet, but looking forward to it!

“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.[3]
”

[Aspies are still known for being something of outcasts, misunderstood by the societies in which they live. If you've ever read much about Hitler himself, and most of his highest ranking cronies, you would know that many, if not most of them, were outcasts themselves. Some of them, including Hitler himself (obviously) were narcissistic psychopaths, who only were able to find an audience for their insane ideals because of the "perfect storm" of historical events surrounding the rise of the Third Reich. It occurs to me the only reason those nutcases were even interested in studying Autistics in their society, was [possibly] because they may have identified themselves with many of the antisocial behaviors displayed by the boys Asperger studied.

.

It seems equally likely if not more likely that what the Nazis were intrigued by was nascent technical skills in these children, rather than outsider, antisocial qualities. They were, after all, "divided on what to do with them". That means that they saw things they didn't like in balance with things they did. Do you really think the Nazis would embrace kids who were not "team players"? Their whole plan depended on people getting with and staying with the program. I think it's more likely that the childrens' antisocial behaviours were a major strike against them but Hans Asperger made a convincing case that their technical interests would make them excellent weapons designers and the Nazis spared them in spite of rather than because of their social differences.

sigh. . .

Do you really think the Nazis would embrace kids who were not "team players"?

Their whole plan depended on people getting with and staying with the program. I think it's more likely that the childrens' antisocial behaviours were a major strike against them but Hans Asperger made a convincing case that their technical interests would make them excellent weapons designers and the Nazis spared them in spite of rather than because of their social differences.