Asperger's Syndrome

What is now called 'Asperger's Syndrome' was first described in a paper published in 1944 by Austrian pediatrician, Dr. Hans Asperger.

In his paper Dr. Asperger described four boys that he had been studying as having 'autistic psychopathy', though he believed their prognosis to be much better than the condition, 'childhood autism', as described in 1943 by Dr. Leo Kanner.

Despite Dr. Asperger's description in the first half of the 20th century, it wasn't until his works, many of which were destroyed by fighting in WWII, was translated and explained in 1981 by researcher Lorna Wing that the world at large started to become aware of the existence of the syndrome. 

Asperger's Syndrome first appeared in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 4th Addition (DSM-IV) in 1994.