Asperger's name has become synonymous with a particular diagnosis within the autism spectrum—specifically what clinicians call high-functioning autism, characterized by an autism diagnosis paired with an IQ in the normal range. In the 1980s, American psychiatrist Lorna Wing rediscovered Hans Asperger's 1944 thesis. Asperger, an Austrian physician born in 1906 and died in 1980, had identified a broader spectrum of autistic presentation than what Leo Kanner, an Austrian-born psychiatrist who emigrated to America, had previously described as the condition's most severe manifestations.
But the path that led Asperger to develop this diagnosis is deeply controversial, as is the decision to attach his name to it. Edith Sheffer's essay helps us understand why. Sheffer—a historian and researcher at the Institute for European Studies at the University of California, and mother of a young man with an autism diagnosis to whom she dedicates this book—carefully traces the historical context and personal trajectory through which Asperger developed his autism diagnosis. "Above all because his definition of autistic psychopathy emerged from the institutions and values of the Third Reich and was produced by Nazi child psychiatry" (p.14). Asperger was never directly charged with any crime, but Sheffer's meticulous archival research reveals how he participated—in indirect roles—in the Nazi euthanasia program for children with various disabilities in Vienna during those years. Beyond casting new light on the doctor's troubling story, the book raises crucial questions: How is a diagnosis "shaped by social and political forces, and how difficult it is to notice this influence, and how hard it becomes to change it" (p.14). Now, when we know that such "labels" have been instruments of persecution and genocide, it is vital for us to understand and recognize the processes through which they are constructed.
Review by Cristina Tersigni
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