Hans Asperger
Hans Asperger ( born February 18, 1906 in Hausbrunn, † October 21, 1980 in Vienna ) was an Austrian pediatrician and medical educator who in 1944 described the first later named after him Asperger syndrome.
Biography and educational- scientific work
Asperger was the oldest of three brothers, the Middle died shortly after birth, the youngest fell in 1942 in Russia. About his parents' house, he wrote: " As I have been brought up? With much love, even self-emptying of my mother, with great strictness of my father. " After attending a Humanist school he graduated in Vienna to study medicine. After receiving his doctorate in 1931 Asperger worked as an assistant at the Children's Hospital of the University of Vienna. Since 1932, he headed the special education department of the hospital. One of his patients was small, the later writer Elfriede Jelinek, "the undergo on Asperger's station of a curative therapy [ had ]. Asperger was almost always present and read to the children before. " Asperger was an advisor to Vienna's main health authority and expert in special schools as well as " difficult, nervous or emotionally disturbed children " in normal schools.
From 1957 to 1962 he was on the board of the Children's Hospital of Innsbruck. In 1962 he became a professor of pediatrics and director of the University Children's Hospital in Vienna, where he stayed until his retirement in 1977. In 1967 he was elected a member of the Scholars Academy Leopoldina.
On 3 October 1938, he made the Special Education Department of the University Hospital of Vienna a lecture in which he presented the characteristics of the " autistic psychopaths " with a Case Study. 1943 ranged Asperger his habilitation thesis, which was released a year later in 1944 published his description of Asperger later named after him Asperger's syndrome. He called the disorder " autistic psychopathy ". The word " autistic " he borrowed Eugen Bleuler, who thus certain features of schizophrenia described to clarify " the narrowing of the person and their reactions to themselves and thereby restricting the scope of re- actions to the stimuli of the environment". The term " psychopathy " today would probably call " personality disorder ". Almost simultaneously with Asperger's book was published, Leo Kanner's work on early childhood autism, which is very similar to the " Asperger Syndrome" had. Aspergers release contained the description of four boys, Fritz, Harro, Ernst and Hellmuth, which he described as " autistic psychopaths ". Those named had in common with average to high intelligence, a lack of empathy, the inability to close friendships, disturbances in eye contact, gestures, facial expressions and language use, intensive study of a field of interest as well as motor disorders. They were self-centered, could not put himself in other people and respond to this. In her emotional life of the boys seemed discordant and often fearful behavior they lacked the affective involvement. Asperger called "little professors " because they could talk in detail about the area of their special interest and often amassed an amazing knowledge.
Since Asperger his publications mostly written in German and they were hardly translated his works were initially little known. Obtained only in the 1990s, Asperger's syndrome international reputation in professional circles. The British psychologist Lorna Wing introduced in the 1980s, the research continues Aspergers, defined the syndrome and named it after his first describer.
Hans Asperger was married to Hanna Kalmon since 1935. The couple had five children. Daughter Maria Asperger fields is a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry, specializing in the diagnosis of autism and practicing in Zurich.
Works (selection)
- The mentally abnormal child. In: Wiener clinical Wochenschrift, 51 1938, pp. 1314-1317
- The " autistic psychopaths " in childhood. In: Archives of Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases 117 (1944) 73-136
- The medical basis of special education, in: Transcript of Pediatrics. Volume 99, Vienna 1950, pp. 105-107
- Special education. Vienna 1952
- Life -experienced, Fifty Years Pediatrics, In: Pediatrics and Pädiologie, 12 1977, pp. 214-223