Hans Asperger - Personal Life

Personal Life

Hans Asperger was born on a farm outside Vienna. He was the elder of two sons. He had difficulty finding friends and was considered a lonely, remote child. As a child, Asperger himself appeared to have exhibited features of the condition subsequently named after him. He was talented in language; in particular he was interested in the Austrian poet Franz Grillparzer, whose poetry he would frequently quote to his uninterested classmates. He also liked to quote himself and often referred to himself from a third-person perspective.

Asperger studied medicine at the University of Vienna under Franz Hamburger and practiced at the University Children's Hospital in Vienna. He graduated doctor of medicine in 1931 and became director of the special education section at the university children's clinic in Vienna in 1932. He married in 1935 and had five children.