What is the difference between Asperger Syndrome and Autism?
Autism was described almost simultaneously by Leo Kanner in the United States and Hans Asperger in Austria. Kanner was interested in lower-functioning children and Asperger in higher-functioning children, but they saw children all along the spectrum, and their descriptions of the condition were very similar. Kanner called it “infantile autism” and Asperger dubbed it “autistic psychopathy.” Kanner was more pessimistic about the prognosis of these children than Asperger, who felt that autistic children had strengths as well as deficits.
