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Brief Report: No Increase in Criminal Convictions in Hans Asperger’s Original Cohort

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Abstract

Hans Asperger originally used the term “autistic psychopathy” to describe his patients on the autism spectrum, leading to a possible confusion with psychopathic disorder and delinquent behaviour. We conducted a penal register search for 177 former patients of Asperger’s clinic with a childhood diagnosis of “autistic psychopathy” or features of the disorder in Austria. The mean percentage of registered convictions was similar to that in the general male population of Austria over the studied time period. A qualitative assessment of offence types in Asperger’s former patients suggests that the nature of offences does not differ from that in the general population. In this original cohort of Asperger’s patients, convictions were no more common than in the general male population.

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Acknowledgments

The first author was supported by the Austrian Academy of Science (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften) during the course of the study.

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Author notes

  1. Kathrin Hippler

    Present address: Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical and Applied Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Kathrin Hippler & Christian Klicpera

  2. Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK

    Essi Viding

  3. MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, UK

    Francesca Happé

  4. Tagesklinische Station für Psychosomatik, E5, Universitätsklinik für Kinder- und Jugendheilkunde, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Kathrin Hippler

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  1. Kathrin Hippler
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  2. Essi Viding
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  3. Christian Klicpera
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  4. Francesca Happé
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Correspondence to Kathrin Hippler.

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Hippler, K., Viding, E., Klicpera, C. et al. Brief Report: No Increase in Criminal Convictions in Hans Asperger’s Original Cohort. J Autism Dev Disord 40, 774–780 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-009-0917-y

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