It turns out that the common portrayal of Dr. Asperger as an anti-Nazi who was opposed to “euthanasia” of the disabled was very far from the truth.
I don’t think the name is going to drop out of common usage any time soon, even if it is technically not used for diagnosis any more . It is a convenient shorthand to describe people on the spectrum.
Yeah, I don’t get the comment that it’s not used anymore.
It is used quite a bit, and many in the autism community, at least among those of us with children who have very limited communication, find it disturbing that it is no longer in the DSM. Even when it was in the DSM, it covered a very wide range of capabilities.
And writing as a parent of a non-verbal adult, I also find it alarming that Asperger was not the anti-Nazi we believed him to be, and that this was not realized until years after the term Asperger’s passed into general usage. It seems that several professionals from the Yale Study Center had taken great care to make sure that the reputation was clean before using the term in the title of books, etc., in the nineties.
At best, Hans Asperger seems to have protected the higher-functioning from euthanasia.
(Currently in the midst of reading the book, which came out yesterday.)
So what are we supposed to call kids who are on the spectrum like that, but who are not at the level that autism implies - non verbal, not able to communicate, never going to be self sufficient or have a normal life?
PG - Good question, and one that many parents I know, who have this type of child, are asking, as we find that “autism” experts have assiduously cleansed their caseloads of this type of autism, and autism services are increasingly geared towards the higher-functioning.
Those individuals would be likely described as low functioning autistic on the spectrum, pg.
Sorry I wasn’t clear. The kids who are functional but “odd” - the Sheldon Coopers of the world, the ones who can function in a classroom but don’t / can’t pick up social skills or emotions. What are they called?
I get the low / non functional ones (I have a friend with a son like this - 20 yo, will never be able to left alone, minimal communication, etc).
Does autism imply that? I don’t think so. The community has spent so much time effort and money to get people to understand the “spectrum” concept, yet ppl still need something to “call” my son. Those who need to label him will know how. Those who don’t should just refrain.
I think they should have left the term “Aspergers” alone. It is what it is at this point. My kid’s diagnosis is not up for PC debate about what to call it…and families dealing with it simply don’t have time to care about that.
Wouldn’t mild autism work?
And to clarify, regarding the diagnostic term, the DSM5 removed Asperger’s , but the new ICD10 did not.
Apologies, pg, I misread your post. One of the frustrating things with the diagnostic rubric is access to services.
They are “technically” high functioning on the autism spectrum if you must have a word to describe them under the new DSM.
In the lay world, to me, the word autistic definitely implies low / no functioning. A kid who is spinning around flapping his hands, cannot communicate with loved ones, may not be able to sit at a table and eat with the family or be properly toilet trained, may have fits of rage that parents are unable to control, would pose a danger to self or others if left alone, etc. At most, a “Rain Man” level of functionality.
Asperger’s, or “on the spectrum.” on the other hand, seems to imply able to communicate with others, able to handle self-care tasks, may even be able to go off to college and live with others – but just considered to be “odd,” perseverate on certain topics, not be able to read people’s emotions very well, etc. Even though the Sheldon Cooper character never had an official diagnosis, that’s what I think lay people think of when they think Asperger’s or on the spectrum. Sometimes parents or kids describe their kid’s roommates in ways that make you suspect the person is on the spectrum.
But again, I’m coming from a lay perspective and could certainly be mistaken or not up to date.
I should have made the title “not used in the DSM anymore.” I know people still use the name, colloquially and otherwise.
HRSMom, you are, of course, entitled to call it what you like. But there’s no reason to be quite so dismissive. There’s nothing remotely “PC” about preferring that a diagnosis not be named after a doctor who, it turns out, was directly involved in the Nazi extermination of severely disabled children. Obviously, a lot of people do care. The diagnosis would clearly never have been named after him if what is known now had been known then.
Does it really matter, at least as far as naming and labels go, that Dr. Asperger wasn’t a great guy? There have, presumably, been a number of excellent people named Asperger. I don’t know that people connect the name of Asperger’s syndrome with any sort of individual, actually, as it is—but even if they do, if we required purity of everyone we named something after…well, we wouldn’t have very many things named after anybody.
We don’t discard rockets because Von Braun knew there was concentration camp labor used in his factories. There isn’t another shorthand phrase for this level of autism. Being pragmatic, we can be repelled by some of his actions, but his name describing this level of autism isn’t going to drop out of common usage.
If we still use the name “Kellogg” for many things, I highly doubt we’re going to drop “Aspergers.”
(The Kellogg brothers- yes, of the cereal fame- were crucial in passing eugenics laws in Michigan and the US. They were also in favor of euthanasia but never could get enough Americans on board.)
And the DSM really nothing but a subset of the ICD 10, which clearly still accepts the diagnostic term and uses a code that is likely reimbursable by most carriers for a covered service.
The Fords were notoriously antisemitic.