My ASD Child

The many patterns of abnormal behavior that cause diagnostic confusion include one originally described by the Austrian psychiatrist, Hans Asperger (1944, 1968, 1979). The name he chose for this pattern was 'autistic psychopathy' using the latter word in the technical sense of an abnormality of personality. This has led to misunderstanding because of the popular tendency to equate psychopathy with sociopathic behavior. For this reason, the neutral term Aspergers is to be preferred and will be used here. Not long before Aspergers original paper on this subject appeared in 1944, Kanner (1943) published his first account of the syndrome he called early infantile autism. The two conditions are, in many ways, similar, and the argument still continues as to whether they are varieties of the same underlying abnormality or are separate entities. Whereas Kanner's work is widely known internationally, Aspergers contribution is considerably less familiar outside the German litera...

In this article, we will discuss the major symptoms associated with Aspergers and High Functioning Autism… Aggression— Aggression is seldom an isolated problem and is particularly complex in kids with Aspergers (high functioning autism) [23]. It is important to understand that aggressive behavior is not always associated with just one condition and can have highly varied sources. An array of theoretic models has been proposed to understand aggressive behavior in children with Aspergers [24]. There are promising biologic models that suggest the behavior arises from alterations in dopaminergic reward mechanisms [25], and cognitive models, suggesting that such acts are an outcome of conditioned learning [26], [27]. Tantrums and physical aggression are often responses to a variety of circumstances and occur in the context of diverse emotions [23]. It has become fashionable to consider aggression as prima facie evidence of bipolar disorder, particularly when Aspergers kids are distrac...