ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 discussed Hans Asperger’s observations of a group of children he considered to have “autistic psychopathy”. As well as striking similarities to Kanner’s first description of his own American cases, Asperger’s account contains points which contrast with the Kanner prototype of autism. In particular, his cases appear to have had better language abilities, more motor difficulties and perhaps more original thinking capacities than Kanner’s subjects. These differences have led people to wonder whether Asperger was, in fact, describing a rather different group of children-perhaps a special subgroup within the autistic spectrum.
