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

  • 1799: A frequently cited early case is the “wild boy of Aveyron,” described by French physician Jean Itard, whose behaviors in retrospect resemble what we now call autism, though no such diagnosis existed at the time.
  • 1911: Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler first used the word “autism” to describe a withdrawal into the self in some people with schizophrenia, not children with what we now call autism spectrum disorder.
  • 1943 (key milestone): Leo Kanner in the United States described 11 children with high intelligence, profound social difficulties, communication differences, and repetitive behaviors, and labelled their condition “early infantile autism.” This is widely regarded as the first clear medical diagnosis of autism as its own syndrome.
  • 1944: Hans Asperger in Austria described children with similar social and behavioral traits but often typical language and cognitive abilities, later termed “Asperger’s syndrome.”
  • 1980: “Infantile autism” appeared as a separate diagnosis in the DSM‑III, officially distinguishing it from childhood schizophrenia in psychiatric manuals.

So if you’re asking “when was the first diagnosis of autism?” in the modern, clinical sense, the usual answer is Kanner’s 1943 description of “early infantile autism,” which marks the beginning of autism as a formally recognized diagnosis.

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