Is Asperger’s Syndrome really a disorder, or just another personality type?
There is much debate in the literature about whether Asperger’s is a psychological disorder or simply a different type of personality. In fact, many individuals now diagnosed with Asperger’s would have likely been viewed in the past as highly intelligent, yet socially awkward people with some unusual traits and eccentricities. Clearly, there is no firm dividing line between what differentiates a personality type from an abnormality, but a useful guideline might be, as DSM-IV criteria states, that for a diagnosis of Asperger’s Disorder, the disturbance must cause “clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning.” Of course, this begs the question of what constitutes “clinically significant impairment,” and this is at the heart of the difficulty in making diagnostic decisions.
