The first formal medical description of autism as a distinct condition was published in 1943 by child psychiatrist Leo Kanner, who called it “early infantile autism.”

Quick Scoop: Key Dates

  • 1799: A boy named Victor (“the wild boy of Aveyron”) was described with behaviors that today might be recognized as autistic traits, but the concept of autism did not exist yet.
  • 1911: Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler first used the word “autism,” but he used it to describe a symptom pattern in schizophrenia, not what we now call autism spectrum disorder.
  • 1920s: Grunya Sukhareva, a Russian child psychiatrist, described children with clear autistic traits, though her work was largely overlooked for decades.
  • 1943: Leo Kanner published his landmark paper describing 11 children with social withdrawal, a desire for “aloneness,” insistence on sameness, and language differences, and named the condition “early infantile autism.” This is widely treated as the first modern autism diagnosis.
  • 1944: Hans Asperger described a “milder” pattern in boys with strong interests, high intelligence, and social-communication difficulties—what later became known as Asperger’s syndrome.
  • 1980: “Infantile autism” was officially added as its own diagnostic category in the DSM-III (the main American psychiatric manual), separating it from childhood schizophrenia.
  • 1994–2000: Autism was reframed as a spectrum in DSM-IV, which included autism, Asperger’s syndrome, and related conditions.
  • Today: The term “autism spectrum disorder” (ASD) in DSM-5 and later updates is used as a single umbrella diagnosis.

So, what counts as the “first” diagnosis?

If your focus is on:

  • First person clearly documented with what we’d now call autism-like traits:
    Victor (1799), described by physician Jean Itard, is often cited retrospectively, but he was not given an autism diagnosis at the time.
  • First use of the word “autism”:
    Eugen Bleuler in 1911, but he meant a feature of schizophrenia, not ASD.
  • First modern clinical autism diagnosis as its own condition:
    Leo Kanner’s 1943 paper is the key moment. This is the answer most historians and clinicians give when asked, “When was autism first diagnosed?”

Forum / “What people say online” angle

On forums and in everyday conversations, you’ll often see takes like:

“We didn’t have autism back then; kids were just weird or shy.”

Many autistic adults and parents push back on this, pointing out that autistic people have always existed; they simply weren’t recognized or were labeled as “eccentric,” “odd,” or misdiagnosed with other conditions. As diagnostic criteria broadened and awareness grew (especially from the 1980s onward), more people started receiving formal diagnoses in childhood and adulthood rather than being overlooked.

Why it matters today

  • Earlier, clearer recognition (especially since the 1980s) has enabled earlier intervention and support , which research links to better outcomes in communication and daily living skills.
  • The shift from a narrow definition in Kanner’s time to today’s spectrum model has allowed many more people—particularly girls, women, and “high-masking” individuals—to finally get identified and supported, sometimes in adulthood.

TL;DR:
Autistic people have always been around, but the first widely recognized modern diagnosis of autism as its own condition dates to Leo Kanner’s description of “early infantile autism” in 1943.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.