A Technical Definition of Asperger's Syndrome

Asperger's is defined in section 299.80 of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) as:

1. Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:
   1. Marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction.
   2. Failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level.
   3. A lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interest or achievements with other people (e.g., by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people).
   4. A lack of social or emotional reciprocity.
2. Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:
   1. Encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus.
   2. Apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals.
   3. Stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g., hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements).
   4. Persistent preoccupation with parts of objects.
3. The disturbance causes clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
4. There is no clinically significant general delay in language (e.g., single words used by age two years, communicative phrases used by age three years).
5. There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self-help skills or adaptive behavior (other than in social interaction) and curiosity about the environment in childhood.
6. Criteria are not met for another specific Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Schizophrenia.

Please read the DSM cautionary statement. The diagnostic criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual are criticized for being vague and subjective; a condition which one psychologist might define as a "significant impairment" might be defined by another psychologist as merely insignificant.

Christopher Gillberg in A Guide to Asperger Syndrome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), also criticizes the "no significant delay" clauses of the DSM, and to a lesser extent some of the others as well, and argues the clauses represent a misunderstanding or oversimplification of the syndrome. He states that while there may well be significant delay in some areas of language development, it is often combined with exceptionally high functioning in other language-related areas, and argues that this combination superficially resembles, but is in reality very different from, normal development in language and adaptive behaviour.

Partly due to Asperger's Syndrome's relatively recent appearance in the DSM, and partly due to differences of opinion such as Gillberg's, there are at least three other, slightly different sets of diagnostic criteria used in the field besides the DSM-IV definition above. One is due to Gillberg himself and his wife, and is also endorsed by Attwood; among other differences, this definition emphasizes the linguistic peculiarities which go unmentioned in the DSM-IV criteria. Another definition is due to a team of Canadian researchers, and is often referred to as the Szatmari definition, after the first listed author of the paper in which these criteria first appeared. Both of these definitions were first published in 1989. The third is the ICD-10 definition; this one is similar to the DSM-IV version, and Gillberg criticizes it in much the same manner as he does the DSM-IV version.

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