Possible Similarities Between the Fragile X and Asperger's Syndromes

Sir.—We read with interest the article these "Learning Disabilities and Attentional Problems in Boys with the Fragile X Syndrome" by Hagerman et al 1 in the July 1985 issue of AJDC. The authors described four boys with incontrovertible evidence of fragile X (fra[X]) chromosome but a higher than usual cognitive level of development, who also showed language difficulties and poor arithmetic skills with a relative strength in reading. All children also showed some atypical behavior, such as hand flapping, mouthing of objects, hand bitting, and a general pattern of distractibility and impulsiveness; one child showed fascination with spinning objects. The authors identified these children as showing a clinical picture of learning disabilities, but the behavioral, abormalities and the neurocognitive profile of these children would lead us to classify them instead as having Asperger's syndrome.In 1944, Asperger2d a syndrome that somewhat resembles Kane's8 picture of infantile autism. Curetly, we are investigating whether Asperger's8 syndrome is a variety of autism without mental retardation, or a separate syndrome. Wing4 resurrected the syndrome and slightly modified the diagnostic criteria on the basis of her experience with 34 cases. In this modified version, children with Asperger's syndrome snowed a delay