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Asperger Syndrome

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Encyclopedia of Adolescence

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Overview

Asperger Syndrome (AS) is the term used to describe individuals who have qualitative impairments of reciprocal social interaction in association with rigid and ritualistic patterns of behavior, including a tendency to circumscribed patterns of interest, of developmental onset. The term “Asperger Syndrome” was coined by Lorna Wing in 1981 (Wing 1981) in recognition of the similarities in presentation between a group of children and young adults that she had clinically characterized and those children who had been described by Hans Asperger in 1944 (Asperger 1944) as having “autistic psychopathy” (or in translation, “autistic personality disorder,” Asperger 1944 translated in Frith 1991). Since Wing’s paper, interest in Asperger Syndrome has increased enormously, as attested by the fact that over 1,000 publications have been devoted to it, and following its subsequent inclusion in both ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases, Volume 10, WHO 1992) and DSM-IV (Diagnostic...

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  1. Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience and Pediatrics, McMaster University, Sanatorium Road, L8S4L8, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Marc Woodbury-Smith

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    Roger J. R. Levesque

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Woodbury-Smith, M. (2011). Asperger Syndrome. In: Levesque, R.J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Adolescence. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1695-2_90

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