Asperger's Syndrome

There have been conflicting reports regarding prognosis. Both Asperger (1944) and Szatmari (1989) reported that individauls improved with maturity. But Wing (1981) described the outcome as poor. The ICD-10 work group also believes that abnormalities are not greatly altered by environmental influences and tend to persist into adolescence and adult life.

However prognosis is better than Autism and with some additional support most children can attend normal school, unfortunately such children are seen as eccentric and often victimized by class mates. Better verbal skills may mislead educators about the child's vulnerability in other areas, and difficulties academically may be misattributed to willful noncompliance. All in all they are capable of greater degrees of personal and occupational self sufficiency than those with Autism.