HANS ASPERGER AND THE AUTISTIC SPECTRUM: Reflections on the past, present and future
About this episode
The episode features a conversation with Dame Uta Frith about Hans Asperger's work and the evolution of the concept of autism.
For the first episode of season 3 your host travelled to North London to record a conversation with Dame Uta Frith whose translation of Hans Asperger’s now famous paper was published 35 years ago. After discussing her reasons for moving to the UK, Uta talks about Lorna Wing’s work and influence before discussing the innovative and multidisciplinary clinic in which Asperger worked in the 1930 and 40s and the structure of his paper - four detailed case descriptions of children with what best translates as ‘autistic psychopathology’. We discuss origin of the term ‘autistic’ and how the concept has evolved since the 1960s, from a narrow and severely disabling non-verbal condition to a spectrum and the difficulties inherent in a condition of varying severity. The episode concludes with three short extracts from Dame Uta’s translation. In the next episode, with novelist Alice Jolly, we will discuss Asperger’s world in more detail, including recent evidence of complicity with Nazi eugenic practices. Check out Alice’s novel ‘The Matchbox Girl’. Participants: Dame Uta Frith FRS is Emeritus Professor of Cognitive…
People in this episode
Host: Ken Barrett
Guest: Dame Uta Frith
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: University College, London
Books & works: The Matchbox Girl, Two Heads
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