What is Asperger Syndrome?

Asperger Syndrome (AS) is a childhood-onset and lifelong disorder characterized by repetitive behaviors and interests, along with limitations and differences in social and emotional development (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).

This syndrome, first described by Hans Asperger in 1944, includes difficulties in nonverbal communication, special interests, intellectual understanding of emotions, clumsiness and body coordination problems, and behavioral problems. Clinical features include normal borderline intelligence, sometimes giftedness.

Asperger Syndrome may present itself with many symptoms such as social interaction and communication disorders, stereotypical and limited interests and actions, limited emphasis and intonation, and motor clumsiness rather than a single symptom. However, these are not sufficient for diagnosis and should be done together with an expert multidisciplinary team (Motlan, et al., 2022).

In the DSM-5 guide*, the concept of Asperger Syndrome was removed and all pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) were grouped under the term autism spectrum disorder (ASD). With this change, Asperger Syndrome is included in the same category as autism spectrum disorder according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) (DSM III-R, American Psychiatric Association, 2013).