Dr. Hans Asperger This is Me

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1. 1. www.statesville.com

   www.statesville.com/servlet/Sa - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/22/2008   Last Visited: 3/22/2008

   Named after its founder, Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger, it is one of several autism spectrum disorders characterized by difficulties in social interaction and by a restricted interest in activities, according to the Autism Society of America.
   
   The Eastons knew little about Asperger's and autism, Doreen said.

2. 2. www.wrongplanet.net

   www.wrongplanet.net/modules.ph - [Cached]

   Published on: 10/25/2007   Last Visited: 10/25/2007

   Asperger, a developmental disorder, mimics autism. Allen was exhibiting the classic symptoms - intense and narrow interest in specific topics, sophisticated vocabulary that makes children sound like little professors, clumsy movements, and socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior that makes it difficult to interact with peers.
   
   But it was recent post-World War II and Hans Asperger, an Austrian physician, had only described the syndrome in a 1944 paper. His work remained quiet; written in German and not often translated. Besides, in 1946, Americans weren't having much to do with Germans or Austrians, said Allen.
   
   It wasn't until she moved with her parents and siblings from out of state to a farm at the Northwest end of the Bennington airport runway, that she felt at peace.

3. 3. www.dallasnews.com

   www.dallasnews.com/sharedconte - [Cached]

   Published on: 12/25/2007   Last Visited: 12/25/2007

   Although the syndrome was identified in the mid-1940s by Viennese pediatrician Hans Asperger, too many kids, until recently, were written off with cruel dismission as odd, incorrigible or mentally deficient.
   
   Early diagnosis is critical, so children can start learning specific strategies for dealing with the people around them. Too often, people with Asperger's suffer from depression and frustration as a consequence of the social isolation they feel.
   
   In his highly readable memoir about living with Asperger's, author John Elder Robison describes the anger his behavior used to inspire in the people around him.
   ...
   Its title is Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's, a refrain that echoes back to his earliest memories. A key trait of Asperger's is difficulty looking other people directly in the eyes.
   ...
   "Asperger's is not a disease," he writes. "It's a way of being. There is no cure, nor is there a need for one."
   
   People with Asperger's stand out as "odd" because they're different. Their behavior seems unusual to most people because their brains work differently. The easy social cues that most of us take for granted - the chitchat, the appearance of interest or concern - don't make instinctive sense to a person with Asperger's.
   
   "Those just aren't automatic responses for these kids," said Dr. Michael McLane, a Dallas pediatric psychologist whose practice includes many children with Asperger's.
   ...
   A person with Asperger's is more likely to say, "OK, when?" or, "No, I don't think I want to."
   
   The other key aspect of Asperger's is an intense, laserlike focus on a narrow range of interests. Most of us are generalists in the things we think about; people with Asperger's tend to be super-specialists.
   ...
   If people with Asperger's, as a group, lack the natural social skills most of us use every day, they also tend to lack some of our darker social habits too: artifice, manipulation, spite. Not, on balance, a bad trade-off.