Asperger's syndrome: a clinical account (Lorna Wing)

Asperger's syndrome: a clinical account

Lorna Wing

Psychological Medicine

February 1981

http://www.mugsy.org/wing2.htm

http://childstudycenter.yale.edu/autism/class/Asperger%E2%80%99s%20syndrome%20A%20clinical%20account._tcm339-166245_tcm339-284-32.pdf

This is the very first comprehensive article about AS published in English back in 1981.

What I want to know is:

1. When did the NAS become aware of the existence of this article?

2. Did anybody ever follow up on this article or was it ignored by the psychology community because progress and developments in AS were painfully slow until around 1995 when it became an officially recognised condition?

3. Lorna Wing died a few years ago so I never managed to ask her some questions as to why she did not write more (elementary) articles about AS and publish them in 'mainstream' publications read by teachers and general practitioners back in the 1980s. Something like the Times Educational Supplement. These are the type of people who are firstline contacts for children with (undiagnosed or suspected) AS. She also did not write any easy to read books for parents of children with AS or teachers back in the 1980s. I strongly believe that keeping AS almost secret outside of an elite circle in the psychology community did a total injustice to children of the 1980s and early 1990s who were often misdiagnosed with behavioural problems and in some cases sent to unsuitable schools that caused more harm than leaving them in a mainstream school.

4. Who was working with Lorna Wing when she published the article who would have also known of its existence?

5. Psychological Medicine is a British journal but did AS only become mainstream and popularised around 1995 after the Americans came to realise that it exists? Most books and articles published in English about AS since 2000ish has been American.

Arran over 8 years ago

I have have a friend with AS who:
Was born in 1977.
Statemented for SEN in 1986 due to problems at school resulting from AS.
His educational psychologist had no idea what was wrong with him.
His GP downplayed his AS traits and told his parents that he will grow out of them.
During 1987 to 1989 he periodically visited psychologists at a hospital but they could not work out what was wrong with him. Autism was ruled out because he did not fit the criteria of traditional ASD with things like speech and language delays.
In 1989 he was misdiagnosed by his educational psychologist as having emotional and behavioural difficulties.
In 1990 he was sent to a residential school for emotional and behavioural difficulties. The school did not meet his needs and it was an appallingly violent and aggressive place. There were a few other children who had ASD traits but many others were just bullies and thugs. The head teacher was a crook who encouraged a dog-eat-dog culture.
In 1991 he ended up with a criminal record for ABH for retaliating against a bully and his mother using a weapon. He felt frightened and helpless at the school. The LEA did nothing despite repeated phone calls and Childline was useless.
If his parents or the psychologists had been aware of the article by Lorna Wing back in the 1980s then it would have enabled him to have been diagnosed with AS rather than misdiagnosed with emotional and behavioural difficulties, then spared the injustice of a violent and unsuitable residential school leading to a criminal conviction.
Sadly Lorna Wing died before he could meet her to ask questions why she kept AS almost secret during the 1980s by leaving the article she wrote to languish in an obscure journal rather than publicising the facts to educational psychologists and teachers.
Unless she has a damn good reason (and there probably isn’t one) for keeping AS almost secret during the 1980s then what she has done is UNFORGIVEABLE. She would have been better off if she didn’t write the article in the first place.
As a result of what has happened he has become a very miserable and unhappy adult suffering from permanent depression. He only found out about AS during the early 2000s. Now as a 40 year old he thinks the mental scarring runs too deep and he is probably mentally broken beyond repair. He also wonders how many lives of other people with AS a similar age to him have been destroyed by Lorna Wing keeping AS almost secret during the 1980s.
Robert124 over 8 years ago

This article is an summary excellent and i can identify with parts of each of the case studies.
I wish i had read it 30 years ago.