Hans Asperger

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Hans Asperger was an Austrian paediatrician and medical professor. He is the one after which the Asperger Syndrome was named. Hans was popular for his early studies on mental disorders, especially in children.

Most of his work was unnoticed all through his life barring few accolades for his studies in Vienna. He got the recognition only after his demise. After 1980, there was quite an important consideration given to his work on Autism and its spectrum disorders. Asperger syndrome (AS) which is one of the ASD, was named after Hans Asperger only.

Education and Personal Life of Hans Asperger

To throw some light in his personal life, he was born in a farm in Vienna. He had one younger brother. He was lonely and remote child in his childhood. He himself had lot of difficulty in finding friends as well. It looked like he himself had symptoms similar to what is seen in the Asperger’s Syndrome which was later named after him.

He was very talented in languages and had often used language quotes while taking lectures for students.

Asperger went to medical school at University of Vienna and later he started practicing at University Children hospital. He completed his DM in 1931 and then became director of special education of children. He got married in 1935 and had 5 children.

His early work on Asperger’s syndrome was destroyed in the bombing in Second World War.

History behind Asperger’s Syndrome

Hans died before his research and work on the identification of this type of pattern behaviour became widely recognised. Most of his research was in German, which was little translated in English. An English doctor, Lorna Wing published a series of studies on children which shows symptoms of “Asperger’s” syndrome.

In 1944, identified the condition as “autistic psychopathy” and this is what we call as Asperger’s Syndrome. This personality disorder he postulated has a marked difference in the way of social isolation.