Asperger syndrome is a pervasive developmental disorder on the higher-functioning end of the Autism Spectrum. Like many of the other Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs), people with Asperger‘s struggle in social situations and using social skills while executing everyday life activities. This is particularly notable during adolescence, when social skills and relationships gain complexity and behav...

Five rating scales for screening and detection of Asperger's Disorder, three commercially available and two research instruments, are evaluated with reference to psychometric criteria outlined by Bracken in 1987 (Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 4, 313). Reliability and validity data reported in examiner's manuals or published reports are reviewed. The scales included in the review are ...

behaviors of people with Asperger syndrome, with the intent to give an account of the severity of symptoms in the area of nonverbal interaction, as well as providing a profile of nonverbal behaviors that may be targeted for intervention. Through this communication profile, overall nonverbal ability is calculated in a group of 20 subjects with Asperger syndrome. The proposed scale also includes ...

At the present time there are a large number of adults who have suspected Asperger syndrome (AS). In this paper we describe a new instrument, the Adult Asperger Assessment (AAA), developed in our clinic for adults with AS. The need for a new instrument relevant to the diagnosis of AS in adulthood arises because existing instruments are designed for use with children. Properties of the AAA inclu...

Asperger's syndrome was first described by Hans Asperger, a Viennese pediatrician, in 1944, who published a clinical description of a group of children who shared an unusual combination of developmental weakness and strengths. These children had severe social and communication abnormalities, restricted interests, motor delays, and clumsiness. Asperger initially named this syndrome autistic psyc...

The semantic and phonemic fluency performance of adults with high functioning autism (HFA), Asperger syndrome and a neurotypical control group were compared. All participants were matched for age and verbal ability. Results showed that the participants with HFA were significantly impaired in their performance of both semantic fluency tasks and the phonemic fluency task using the letter M. The A...

First described in 1944 by Hans Asperger (1944), it was not before 1994 that Asperger Syndrome (AS) was included in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, only to disappear in the Manual's fifth edition in 2013. During its brief existence as a diagnostic entity, AS aroused immense interest and controversy. Similar to patients with autism, AS patients sh...

Theory of mind was assessed in 32 adults with HFA, 29 adults with Asperger syndrome and 32 neurotypical adults. The HFA and Asperger syndrome groups were impaired in performance of the Strange stories test and the Faux-pas test and reported more theory of mind problems than the neurotypical adults. The three groups did not differ in performance of the Eyes test. Furthermore, correlations betwee...

In the present study we introduce a sensitive video-based test for the evaluation of subtle mindreading difficulties: the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC). This new mindreading tool involves watching a short film and answering questions referring to the actors' mental states. A group of adults with Asperger syndrome (n = 19) and well-matched control subjects (n = 20) were adm...

Twenty-one adolescent boys with Asperger syndrome and 21 boys matched on age and an estimate of IQ were assessed using standardized measures of social perception (Child and Adolescent Social Perception Measure, CASP), social skills (parent, teacher, and student forms of the Social Skills Rating System, SSRS), number of close friends and frequency of contact (Child Behavior Checklist) and expres...