Lorna Wing

Who is Lorna Wing?

Lorna Wing, MD, FRCPsych, is an English psychiatrist and physician.

As a result of having an autistic daughter, she became involved in researching developmental disorders, particularly autism spectrum disorders. She joined with other parents of autistic children to found the National Autistic Society in the United Kingdom in 1962. She currently works part-time as a consultant psychiatrist at the NAS Centre for Social and Communication Disorders at Elliot House.

Wing is the author of many books and academic papers, including Asperger's Syndrome: a Clinical Account, a 1981 academic paper that popularised the research of Hans Asperger and introduced the term "Asperger's syndrome". Although groundbreaking and influential, Wing herself cautioned in her 1981 paper that "It must be pointed out that the people described by the present author all had problems of adjustment or superimposed psychiatric illnesses severe enough to necessitate referral to a psychiatric clinic ... the series described here is probably biased towards those with more severe handicaps."

She lives in Sussex, England.