[Asperger syndrome in childhood: review of four cases].

INTRODUCTION

Asperger syndrome is a pervasive developmental disorder included lately in the international classifications.

OBSERVATIONS: We report the observations of four children presenting this syndrome. For every patient, we collected antecedents and psychomotor development; we made neuropsychological assessment and video recording. Three patients underwent an EEG and one a cerebral MRI.

RESULTS

These patients were between ten- and sixteen-year old. The neuropsychological assessment showed a heterogeneous intellectual functioning with three times out of four a dissociation between high verbal level and low non-verbal level. Their language appeared sophisticated, apragmatic, their comprehension was inflexible. The mean age at diagnosis was ten years. They showed a sociability and autonomy improvement but they were conscious of their difference and suffered from it.

CONCLUSION

Our four cases allow to present Asperger syndrome, slightly known in France. Collaborative studies and genetic studies are necessary to improve the knowledge of this syndrome.