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autism

UK/ˈɔːtɪzəm/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,500 of 15,258leans written

Autism is a condition affecting how somebody communicates and senses the world. Diagnosed with autism, autism support, an autism assessment.

It is developmental and lifelong, and the current understanding is of a spectrum rather than a single condition — differences in social communication, in patterns of interest, and very often in how sensory input is experienced. Language matters here and preferences differ: many autistic people prefer autistic person to person with autism. Note that the word comes from the Greek for self.

Definitions of autism

  1. 1nounautismA condition affecting how somebody communicates and senses the world.B2+

    “Her son was diagnosed with autism at three, and he finds loud, crowded places overwhelming.”

autism is a developmental condition.

Where it comes from

German Autismus was coined by Eugen Bleuler about 1910 from Greek autos, self, for withdrawal into oneself. The modern sense developed from the 1940s onward.

  1. Ancient Greek

    αὐτός — self

  2. German

    Autismus

  3. English, today

    autism

Built from

  • -ισμός · Ancient Greek — -ism

German Autismus, coined by Q115506, first usage dated to 1907 attributed by Carl Jung as an alternative of his for "auto-erotism", although Bleuler himself differentiates the terms in his book Dementia Praecox, first published 1911. From Ancient Greek αὐτός (“self”) + -ισμός (“-ism”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Disability & Access

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autism in the wild

  • About a third of those affected have features of autism such as problems with social interactions and delayed speech.

    Fragile X syndrome

  • Haddon said that he is not an expert on the autism spectrum or Asperger's syndrome.

    The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

  • Baron-Cohen has worked in autism research for over 40 years, starting in 1982.

    Simon Baron-Cohen

  • In 1997, he formulated the prenatal sex steroid theory of autism, the key test of which was published in 2015.

    Simon Baron-Cohen

  • The autistic rights movement, also known as the autism rights movement or the autism acceptance movement, is a social movement allied with the disability rights movement.

    Autistic rights movement

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.