Conclusion
These families have a developing boy with a severe handicap in social relationships and adapting to educational systems, despite intelligence measured in the average range. Most of their families, aided by strong commitment, perseverance, and the will and wit to help their child adapt, achieve remarkable results in bringing up these children. We have seen their parents criticized, their persecution at the hands of schoolchildren, the application of simple remedies by educators on small acquaintance, and their humiliations and rejections from the misunderstanding of their disability. Public knowledge of the syndrome with a realistic image will be highly beneficial to the children and their families.
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The authors thank the Apex Foundation for the funding of this work, Tania Smith for her work on questionnaires and gathering data, Gillian Turner for chromosome studies, and Ian Wilkinson for reviewing neurological studies of the boys. Our thanks to Anatole Konavets for his translation of literature from the Russian and to L. Szlavek and Erik von Dietze for translations from the German. We are particularly grateful for the patience and cooperation of the boys and their families.
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Rickarby, G., Carruthers, A. & Mitchell, M. Brief report: Biological factors associated with asperger syndrome. J Autism Dev Disord 21, 341–348 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02207330
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02207330