Reframing Asperger syndrome: lessons from other challenges to the Diagnostic and statistical manual and ICIDH approaches

Abstract

The medical approach to Asperger syndrome (AS) classifies it as a mental disorder. This paper critically examines the concept of mental illness as specified by the Diagnostic and statistical manual (DSM) in the light of published assessments and accounts of AS provided by a variety of sources. Taken together, these accounts provide further support for reframing AS as a socially constructed human difference rather than a pathology. The demedicalization of homosexuality is offered as one potential model for the nature of the reframing of AS.

Keywords:

• Asperger syndrome
• demedicalization
• DSM‐IV
• social construction