When did you first hear about Asperger's Syndrome?

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And stupid me was wondering why the poll didn't include options for years after 2004. ROTFLMAO.

I fell for it as well the poll only extending to 2004 should have been a dead giveaway

In 1998 when I was first diagnosed. But I was only told a brief description about it. I was just told that it meant "I don't talk to people properly", and "I am scared of loud noises". That's all I thought it was. It wasn't until I joined WP in 2010 that I found it's more than just that. I've always instinctly been able to recognize body language and all of that, so I didn't know that people with ASDs are supposed to have trouble with that.

So I wasn't the only one who didn't immediately get it lol.

I heard of Aspergers after 2004. I don't recall the year for sure, but it would have to be somewhere between 2005 and 2007, probably 2005 or 2006. It was a TV program about a British man with AS.

Then I put it out of my mind until 2008.

I'm sure it was sometime in the mid 90's on a BBC World documentary. I didn't at that time see it applying to me - because they reported a stereotype of extremely boring people who had absolutely no social awareness whatsoever whose favorite hobbies were things like memorizing train schedules. I had already heard on another BBC Word documentary that Autistic children never tell lies or engage in make believe. Since I knew none of these descriptions applied to me and since I had already been diagnosed with OCD as well as general anxiety disorder and depression disorder - what I had heard from these two BBC documentaries - I could not have imagined at that time that I fit into any such categories.

almost three years ago, age 45. in one of my ex jobs, i met this fellow aspie, and he asked me if i have asperger syndrome and told me what it is. said he knew from my body language, look in the eyes, and overal attitude. so i looked it up on the net, and every word made sense. definitely me.

I first heard of it on a BBC Radio program, that found me sympathising with many of what were being presented as « defects » when they are really just differences. It wasn’t a perfect fit though, and the first clue as to why, had already come, in 1981, when I filled the full industrial version of the Chandler & Macleod Temperament and Aptitude psychometric test.

The output informed me that I was strongly normalising (the ability to adapt to whatever culture you find yourself in) but in the categories (once used in the 1935 Humm & Wadsworth Temperament Scale, from which the C & M was developed, and still to be found in aaron Rosanoff’s “A Theory of Personality…” of 1921) Hysteroid, Manic, Paranoid, Depressive and Epileptoid categories, I was Mr average, with all the subcategories neatly together (as is normally the case) other than for just one slightly higher than average blip, in the Depressive. In the Autistic category, though, it looked more like two shotgun blasts at both very strong and very weak! This is unusual, as is the fact that I had a significant strength in only one category (lost score strongly in two or three different categories. No, they don’t cancel out; the fact that I’m very weak in some subcategories is just as significant as being very strong in others. I am very much autistic, but quite atypical!

Interestingly, one of the experts comment that aspies were strongly overrepresented among history’s inventors and natural philosophers, at which the presenter very hastily shut down the show with a huffy “That would be very difficult to prove”, which is far from the case!

I first read about it in 1997.

My answer isn't on the poll. It was likely around 2008.

I would have clocked the term around 2002 when a famous extradition case started, and Aspergers formed part of the submission by the defence legal team.

It reached my consciousness again back in 2013 and 2014 on learning that someone in our circle is so. It came in again in 2014 when a guest introduced themselves as such, with the little leg pull about "You don't as an aspie "Does my bum look big in this?" unless you actually want the truth."

2005, I think... so also outside the poll.

I believe I read or heard something about it sometime in the 1980s. Certainly by 1994.

Early '95. My sister was distressed that our mother was dying and had never said "I love you" or other common parental statements. I had been going to programs for survivors of dysfunctional families for 15 years, and never heard a word about inherited conditions. I did another web search, and it turned up a list of Aspie symptoms that made sense of both my mother and myself, and probably her father.