Hans Asperger: the power of case descriptionĪsperger wrote his case histories at a time when Gestalt psychology had become a formidable force of influence in the German-speaking world ( Ash 1995). In quite a few cases, media representations of talent and special abilities can be said to have contributed to a harmful divergence between the general image of autism and the clinical reality of the autistic condition.Ģ. Considering that much of what society at large learns on disorders on the autism spectrum is produced by representations of autism in novels, TV-series, movies or autobiographies, it will be of vital importance to scrutinize these representations and to check whether or not they are, in fact, misrepresenting autism. Specifically, it will be argued that Asperger's Gestalt-like assessment and description of autism, even if it is officially denounced in modern psychiatric practice, offers a convincing model of the way stereotypes may build up as a result of representations of autism.
Autistic typing professional#
Some of his considerations on diagnosing and describing autism may help us reflect on the professional and media representations of autism. In these pages Asperger grappled with issues that are still very much with us, issues of labelling, description and stereotyping.
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In the original publication on the syndrome that was to bear his name, Asperger (1944) introduced his case histories with a series of reflections on the proper methodology of classifying and diagnosing psychiatric disorders.