Autism/Asperger's Syndrome

The Autism Spectrum

The first accurate description of autistic symptoms appeared in 1943, when Leo Kanner published “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact.” The term autism, a derivative of the Greek word autos or self, highlighted the primary symptom exhibited by the 11 children in Kanner's study. Kanner noted that these children presented with marked deficits in their ability to relate to other people.

Over time, the conceptualization of autism has evolved into the current view of a spectrum of psychological disorders identified by a fundamental deficit in one's ability to navigate the social world. Autistic disorder and Asperger's disorder, for example, share a common symptom in a significant impairment in social functioning relative to the individual's chronological age and measured intelligence.

The key distinguishing criteria for autistic disorder is a marked impairment in language, cognitive, or adaptive development before age 3. While some persons with autistic disorder are “high-functioning” (HFA), it is not uncommon for someone with autism to have severe language, emotional, and cognitive delays—including mental retardation. A classically autistic individual presents with early communication and language delays, cognitive deficits, stereotyped and restricted interests and behaviors, and a profound lack of social awareness. Stereotyped and restricted interests may include a specialized interest in a certain area or subject such as electrical wiring or computers. Stereotyped behaviors are often exhibited as repetitive hand, finger, or whole-body movements aimed at providing increased self-stimulation. These are referred to as self-stimulatory behaviors or “stimming” and should be distinguished from the motor tics that are typically observed in anxiety disorders.

A year after Kanner published his findings on autism, Hans Asperger, an Austrian pediatrician, published a paper discussing four boys who presented with symptoms similar to those described by Kanner. Asperger, however, described children that were higher-functioning in terms of developmental history than those described by Kanner.

Similar to autistic disorder, persons with Asperger's disorder present with social difficulties that pervade [Page 35]their ability to establish and maintain peer relationships. Moreover, they exhibit highly specialized areas of interests and are often referred to as being “experts” on that subject. A person with Asperger's disorder, however, is differentiated from a person with autism in that the individual does not have a history of significant cognitive, adaptive, or language delays.

While individuals with Asperger's disorder do not have a history of communication delays, they, like persons with autistic disorder, present with peculiar linguistic tendencies, including a pedantic style, awkward tone and rate (often referred to as “robotic”), and difficulties maintaining reciprocal, give-and-take conversations. Moreover, they often avoid using idioms and figures of speech because they struggle to separate the literal meaning of these expressions from the underlying expressive connotation.

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