In a Different Key: The Story of Autism (87 page)

father of five:
V. Lyons and M. Fitzgerald, “Did Hans Asperger (1906–1980) Have Asperger Syndrome?”
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
37 (2007): 2020–21.

a medical weekly:
Hans Asperger, “Das psychisch abnormale Kind,”
Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift
51 (1938): 1314–17. The authors thank Jeremiah Riemer for his assistance in translating all of Asperger’s writings quoted in this book. For the sake of readability, we made occasional modifications to his language, such that the responsibility for the translations is ours alone.

postgraduate thesis:
Hans Asperger, “Die ‘Autistischen Psychopathen’ im Kindesalter,”
Archiv fur Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten
117 (1944): 76–136.

“malevolent light”:
Hans Asperger, “Autistic Psychopathy in Childhood,” in
Autism and Asperger Syndrome
, ed. Uta Frith (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 79.

he was named a lecturer at:
Frith,
Autism and Asperger
, xii.

published more than three hundred times:
Ibid., 208.

continued lecturing past:
Feinstein,
History of Autism
, 18.

Asperger’s name once:
Bernard Rimland,
Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior
(Appleton-Century-Crofts, Educational Division, Meredith Publishing, 1964), 54.

“I do not understand”:
Letter from Bernard Rimland to Dr. Joshua Lederberg, July 31, 1964, the Joshua Lederberg Papers, National Library of Medicine,
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/ResourceMetadata/BBALQA
.

Leo Kanner made a passing:
Gil Eyal,
The Autism Matrix
(Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2010), 216.

Krevelen, an early autism researcher:
D. Arn Van Krevelen, “Early Infantile Autism and Autistic Psychopathy,”
Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia
1, no. 1 (1971): 82–86.

did not trouble him much:
In a talk by Asperger in German in 1977, before the Congress of the Swiss Association of the Parents of Autistic Children, he shrugged off his relative obscurity in the autism world vis-à-vis Leo Kanner with a joke: “Americans don’t read German papers.” In context, it reads as more resigned than resentful.
Communication
13, no. 3 (1979): 45–52.

Wing’s husband who first stumbled:
“Lorna Wing—Obituary,”
Daily Telegraph
, June 9, 2014.

Wing published “Asperger’s Syndrome”:
Lorna Wing, “Asperger’s Syndrome: A Clinical Account,”
Psychological Medicine
11, no. 1 (1981): 115–29.

“the neutral term”:
Ibid., 115.

“no clear boundaries”:
Lorna Wing, “Past and Future of Research on Asperger Syndrome,” in
Asperger Syndrome
, ed. Ami Klin, Red R. Volkmar, and Sara S. Sparrow (New York: Guilford Press, 2000).

“Identification of any of the eponymous”:
Lorna Wing, “The Relationship Between Asperger’s Syndrome and Kanner’s Syndrome,” in Frith,
Autism and Asperger
, 116.

“who often cannot believe”:
Ibid.

“Asperger, despite listing numerous”:
Lorna Wing, “Reflections on Opening Pandora’s Box.”
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
35, no. 2 (2005): 198. The scene of Lorna Wing and Hans Asperger meeting is also recounted in Adam Feinstein’s
The History of Autism
.

“We cordially agreed to differ”:
Ibid.

a 1968 paper:
Hans Asperger, “Zur Differentialdiagnose des Kindlichen Autismus,”
Acta Paedopsychiatrica
35 (1968): 136–45.

“complete agreement in some”:
Hans Asperger, “Problems of Infantile Autism (A Talk),”
Communication
(1979): 45–52.

“psychotic or near psychotic state”:
Ibid.

“Asperger’s typical cases”:
It is not clear whether Asperger used the third
person in this instance or whether that was a translator’s choice. The original German was not available to the authors.

CHAPTER 32: THE SIGNATURE

Was Hans Asperger, as a young man:
The account of the Wing-Volkmar conversation in this chapter is from an author interview with Fred Volkmar. It represents Volkmar’s best recollection of the call, with a high degree of confidence in its accuracy, but should not be regarded as excerpts from a strict verbatim transcript of the phone call, which does not exist.

a research request for volunteers:
Ami Klin, Fred R. Volkmar, and Sara S. Sparrow,
Asperger Syndrome
(New York: Guilford Press, 2000), 2.

“The seeds for our current syndrome”:
Eric Schopler, “Premature Popularization of Asperger Syndrome,” in
Asperger Syndrome or High-Functioning Autism?
, ed. Eric Schopler, Gary B. Mesibov, and Linda J. Kunce (New York: Plenum Press, 1998), 386.

guilt by association:
Account of Schopler’s suspicions of Asperger corroborated in author interview with Gary Mesibov, Schopler’s longtime collaborator at TEACCH.

“longstanding interest”:
Eric Schopler, “Ask the Editor: Are Autism and Asperger Syndrome Different Labels or Different Disabilities,”
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
26, no. 1 (1996): 109.

Volkmar, for example, did not hear:
Details of the conversation between Fred Volkmar and Lorna Wing are from author interview with Fred Volkmar.

As a psychology PhD:
Ami Klin, “Young Autistic Children’s Listening Preferences in Regard to Speech: A Possible Characterization of the Symptom of Social Withdrawal,”
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
21, no. 1 (1991): 29–42.

The question the two men:
Account of Cohen-Klin conversations from author interview with Ami Klin.

“If you are going to kill”:
As quoted by D. Konziella, “Thirty Neurological Eponyms Associated with the Nazi Era,”
European Neurology
62 (2009): 56–64.

“Hans Asperger, a Nazi?”:
Author interview with Fred Volkmar.

“We would like to be able”:
The details of Ami Klin’s correspondence with Michael Hubenstorf come from author interviews with Klin and letters he shared with the authors.

she wrote that her father had been at odds:
Maria Asperger, foreword to
Asperger Syndrome
, Klin et al., xiii.

“Far from despising”:
Hans Asperger, “Autistic Psychopathy in Childhood” in
Autism and Asperger Syndrome
, ed. Uta Frith (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 37–92.

“humanity and his courageous”:
Brita Schirmer, “Autismus und NS-Rassengesetze in Österreich 1938: Hans Aspergers Verteidigung der ‘Autistischen Psychopathen’ gegen die NS-Eugenik,”
Die neue Sonderschule
47, no. 6 (2002): 460–64.

“tried to protect these”:
Viktoria Lyons and Michael Fitzgerald, “Did Hans Asperger (1906–1980) Have Asperger Syndrome?”
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
37 (2007), 2020–21.

“The very opposite is more likely”:
Feinstein,
History of Autism
, 15. Hans Asperger’s diary is cited in Maria Feldner Asperger,
Zum Sehen geboren, zum Schauen bestellt
.

“An entire nation goes in a single”:
Hans Asperger, diary, 1934, in Maria Asperger Feldner,
Zum Sehen Geboren, zum Schauen Bestellt
.

His Catholic faith:
Steve Silberman,
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
(New York: Avery, 2015), 121.

Allies’ “denazification” policy:
The phenomenon of Nazi Party members trying to rewrite their pasts during the denazification period is well illustrated in a case history by Herwig Czech and Lawrence A. Zeidman, “Walther Birkmayer, Co-describer of LDopa, and His Nazi Connections: Victim or Perpetrator?,”
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences: Basic and Clinical Perspectives
(April 3, 2014): 19.

a
persilschein
, or “Persil certificate”:
Ernst Klee,
Persilscheine und falsche Passe. Wie die Kirchen den Nazis halfen
(“Persil Certificates and False Passports: How the Church Aided the Nazis”) (Frankfurt, Germany: Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1991).

in a 1962 talk:
Excerpts from both Hans Asperger’s 1962 talk and his 1974 radio appearance are from Hans Asperger, “Ecce Infans. Zur Ganzheitsproblematik in der modernen Pädiatrie,” Wiener Antrittsvorlesung, 1962, in
Wiener klinische Wochenschrift
74, 936–41. Austrian historian Herwig Czech discovered and shared this material with the authors.

While ardently pro-Catholic:
John Connelly,
From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews, 1933–1965
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012).

“excessive Jewish influence”:
An example of Bund Neuland’s political and philosophical leanings can be found in L.Z., “Die Juden Wiens,” 1935, in
Neuland. Blätter jungkatholischer Erneuerungsbewegung
, 19–21. This information was shared with the authors by Herwig Czech.

“We stand in the midst”:
Hans Asperger, “Das Psychisch Abnorme Kind”
Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift
(1938): 1314–17.

A review of other medical talks:
A review of the talks and other journals and papers was shared with the authors by Herwig Czech.

“deft chess move”:
Brita Schirmer, “Autismus und NS-Rassengesetze in Österreich 1938: Hans Aspergers Verteidigung der ‘Autistischen Psychopathen’ gegen die NS-Eugenik,”
Die neue Sonderschule
47, no. 6 (2002): 460–64.

what he called “social worth”:
Hans Asperger, “Die ‘Autistischen Psychopathen’ im Kindersalter,”
Archiv fur Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten
117 (1944): 76–136; ibid.

That turns out to be a myth:
Swedish psychologist Chris Gillberg, who popularized the term “Little Professors” in a widely read 1991 book, confirmed
to the authors in 2015 that he coined it himself, to capture the essence of the boys Asperger studied. Although historian Herwig Czech notes that Asperger described one child’s manner of speaking as “professorial” in a 1939 paper, the phrase “Little Professors,” frequently attributed to Asperger, cannot be found anywhere in his writings.

“thought it more rewarding”:
Hans Asperger, “Das Psychisch Abnorme Kind.”

autistic traits were more often a detriment:
In Asperger’s 1944 paper, “Die ‘Autistischen Psychopathen’ im Kindersalter,” page 118, he wrote:
“Leider überwiegt nicht in allen, nicht einmal in den meisten Fällen das Positive, Zukunftweisende der autistischen Wesenszüge.”
The translation: “Unfortunately, the things that are positive and promising [more literally, ‘forward-looking’] about autistic traits are not their overriding features in all cases, and not even in most.”

“pronounced intellectual inferiority”:
Ibid

“When at home, this child must”:
Based on documents shared with the authors by Herwig Czech. See also Herwig Czech, “ ‘The Child Must Be an Unbearable Burden to Her Mother’: Hans Asperger, National Socialism, and ‘Race Hygiene’ in World War II Vienna,” unpublished paper submitted in 2015 to
Molecular Autism
.

“conforms to the principles of the policy of racial hygiene”:
Ibid.

“his Nazi credibility”:
Ibid.

the director of the clinic:
Author interview with Arnold Pollak.

CHAPTER 33: THE DREAM OF LANGUAGE

the civil rights of people with disabilities:
Unless otherwise noted, this and other details about Chris Borthwick and Douglas Biklen are from an author interview with Biklen and a letter from Borthwick to Biklen, April 15, 1987, provided to the authors by Biklen.

Biklen was well-known:
Steven J. Taylor and Douglas Biklen,
Understanding the Law: An Advocates Guide to the Law and Developmental Disabilities
(Syracuse, NY: Human Policy Press, 1980); author interview with Douglas Biklen.

The inherent merit of his agrument:
Biklen interview.

Rosemary Crossley was a celebrity:
Rosemary Crossley and Anne McDonald,
Annie’s Coming Out
(Melbourne: Deal Books, Penguin Books Australia, 1980).