Although the findings above in many ways agree with the DSM-5 [9] placement of ASP within the broad autistic spectrum, they also demonstrate that patients with ASP can be physiologically distinguished from those with ASD. Recognition of ASP as a separate entity is important from the patients’ perspectives of obtaining appropriate medical and educational services as well as of establishing a personal identity. As an example of the latter, the well-read author with Asperger’s Syndrome, J E Robinson [67], reported in a televised interview that it ‘was life changing … ’ to discover as an adult that he had a known, named syndrome and that ‘ … there were so many people like me.’
