Hideous side to Hans Asperger

After a long, distinguished career as a practising psychologist and medical specialist, Hans Asperger, professor of psychology at Vienna University, died in 1980.

Starting in the 1930s, Asperger made a name for himself as a pediatrician, specialising in the mental disorders of children, and was a pioneer in the study of autism.

He found that severely autistic children and adults were clumsy, communicated awkwardly with others, had poor eye contact, limited facial expressions and bodily gestures, and failed to appreciate other’s feelings. Many autistic adults had obsessive or repetitive routines or interests and were blind to fashion.

In the 1940s, Asperger developed a scale of autism, ranging from serious ‘‘autistic psychopathy’’ to a much milder form, which he defined as a distinct condition.

He earned a big reputation in Europe but, because most of his work was published in German, he was little known to the Englishspeaking world.

English-speaking clinical psychologists discovered Asperger only after his death. They thought so well of him that they named the milder version of autism after him in the 1990s, calling it Asperger’s syndrome.

Today, more than 30 million people worldwide are reckoned to have the condition.

This year, in a new book titled Asperger’s Children, Californian Edith Sheffer reveals a dark and hideous side to Asperger.

In the 1930s, Nazis set about purifying the Aryan race. All doctors, nurses and midwives were required to report on any child with mental or physical disabilities, to be sent to 37 special ‘‘Children’s Wards’’.

As chief psychologist at a Children’s Ward in Vienna, Asperger sorted children with mental or physical disabilities according to criteria such as genetical inferiority, uneducable, unemployable, those unworthy of life, incapable of social conformity, or too difficult for parents to manage.

His signature was a death sentence for hundreds of these children. With the publication of Sheffer’s chilling book, many feel uncomfortable using Asperger’s name.

There’s a moral here for clinicians: Make sure a compassionate heart beats under your white lab coat.

His signature was a death sentence for hundreds of these children.