The fact that the syndrome shaded into subclinical eccentricity raised a question that cut to the core of the entire psychiatric enterprise: Was Asperger’s syndrome truly a mental disorder or a common personality type in its most extreme form? Asperger’s 1944 description suggested a more holistic view: it was a personality type that could become profoundly disabling in the absence of adequate adaptation by the patient and the people in his or her environment. Volkmar cautioned his colleagues, “Odd and unusual behaviors do not, in and of themselves, constitute a ‘disorder’ unless they are
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