SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently claimed to be the first person with Asperger’s Syndrome to have hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live. The revelation came on Saturday and evoked many positive reactions, especially from people living with neurological or developmental disabilities like Autism who hailed Musk for increasing representation of persons with disabilities on a popular prime-time show. Not all, however, were left impressed. Soon after Musk’s admission that he has Asperger’s, many slammed the billionaire for using the term Asperger’s Syndrome to describe his disability, instead of using the term ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder’ or ASD – the term used to describe the condition medically today.
What is Asperger’s?
Asperger’s Syndrome or AS is a neurological developmental disorder in the Autism spectrum that affects children at a young age and may result in difficulties in social interaction and communication that manifest themselves throughout life. The disorder is also characterised by restricted or repetitive behavioural or interest patterns. Persons identified with Asperger’s syndrome often display a higher degree of functionality than severe autism.
Asperger’s Syndrome (or Asperger’s disorder) was first identified in the 1940s by a Viennese doctor and paediatrician named Hans Asperger. The doctor identified the set of characteristics identified with autism including difficulty in speech and faulty social communication skills in young boys despite exhibiting working language development or intelligence.
What is ASD?
Previously, Asperger’s was considered a separate disorder. But in 2013, the American Psychiatric Association’s universal guide for mental health called ‘The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)’ changed the classification. Today, the set of characteristics associated with Asperger’s are not treated as a separate disorder but as part of the broader ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder’, sometimes referred to as ‘high-functioning ASD.
While the declassification of Asperger’s as a separate disorder led to researchers and mental health practitioners urging people to phase out the use of the term ‘Asperger’s’, there is also a second reason why the use of the term has been discouraged in recent year – its Nazi legacy.
What’s wrong with saying Asperger’s?
A study published in Molecular Austims previously noted Viennese doctor Hans Asperger had deeper collusion with the Nazi administration in Germany under Adolf Hitler than previously acknowledged. Historian and author of the paper Herwig Czech analysed several publications made by Aspergers during the Nazi years as well as his personal writings, patient records and files among other previously unexamined documents archives in Austria. The historian found that Asperger referred several cases of children with profound disabilities to the notorious Am Spiegelgrund clinic which is believed to have operated the child euthanasia program engineered by the Third Reich in keeping with the Nazi ideal of ‘racial hygiene. The latter theory mandated the elimination of all life that was considered unworthy of a life or a ‘burden’ to society in any way including persons with disabilities and later on, Jews and non-Aryans.
Since the publication of Czech’s paper, many have demanded that using the term ‘Asperger’s Syndrome’ be phased out as it is not only medically inaccurate but also holds deeper, racist connotations.
Why is Elon Musk getting hate?
While Musk received love from many people living with ASD for increasing representation of PWDs on primetime American television, many wondered how the tech-genius and second richest person in the world did not know better than using the word Asperger’s onscreen.
Figures that elon musk would identify more with the outdated term “aspergers” (which isn’t a diagnosis in the dsm anymore, it’s all ASD, aspergers was named for a nazi that split the “useful” autistics from the rest of us, in order to save only the Good ones from the camps).— Noor ☭ Nug Bug (@MuslimMissWorld) May 9, 2021
god can we just please stop using the word asbergers that was literally a nazi dude hey Elon you’ve just set the discourse back 8 years for the rest of us, you prick!(just call it autism, and if I see anyone trying to turn Elon Musk into an “autistic icon” I will scream)
— Jupiter; Demon, Streamer (@jupiterfromhell) May 9, 2021
But then again, this is Elon Musk, the man who has publicly trashed union rights, spread coronavirus misinformation and ridiculed the un-gendering of pronouns on social media, where he is both loved and hated by millions of users.
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