Adjacent Words

autism definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: (psychiatry) an abnormal absorption with the self; marked by communication disorders and short attention span and inability to treat others as people

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1948 a variable developmental disorder that appears by age three and is characterized by impairment of the ability to form normal social relationships, by impairment of the ability to communicate with others, and by stereotyped behavior patterns • autistic adjective or noun • autistically adverb

Britannica Concise

Neurobiological disorder that affects physical, social, and language skills. First described by Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger in the 1940s, the syndrome usually appears before 21 / 2 years of age. Autistic infants appear indifferent or averse to affection and physical contact. They may be slow in learning to speak and suffer episodes of rage or panic; they may also appear deaf and display an almost hypnotized fascination with certain objects. Autism is often characterized by rhythmic body movements such as rocking or hand-clapping and by an obsessive desire to prevent change in daily routines. Autistic individuals may be hypersensitive to some stimuli (e.g., high-pitched sounds) and abnormally slow to react to others (e.g., physical pain). The disorder is three to four times more common in males. Though postnatal factors such as lack of parental attention were once blamed, it is now known that autism is the result of abnormalities in the brain structure. About 15-20% of autistic adults live and work independently; "high-functioning" autistic people may have special gifts based on their unusual ability for visual thinking. See also idiot savant.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. Psychol. a mental condition, usu. present from childhood, characterized by complete self-absorption and a reduced ability to respond to or communicate with the outside world. Derivatives: autistic adj. Etymology: mod.L autismus (as AUTO-, -ISM)

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Autism is a mental disorder that affects children, particularly their ability to relate to other people.

Moby Thesaurus

acquisitiveness, airy nothing, alienation, anesthesia, autistic thinking, avoidance mechanism, bashfulness, blame-shifting, bubble, careerism, catatonia, chill, chilliness, chimera, cold blood, cold heart, coldheartedness, coldness, compensation, coolness, daydream, deadpan, deception, decompensation, defense mechanism, deluded belief, delusion, dereism, dereistic thinking, dispassion, dispassionateness, displacement, dissociability, dissociation, dream, dream vision, dreamery, dreamland, dreamworld, dullness, ego trip, egotism, emotional deadness, emotional insulation, emotionlessness, escape, escape into fantasy, escape mechanism, escapism, false belief, fantasizing, fantasy, flight, flight of fancy, frigidity, frostiness, graspingness, greed, heartlessness, iciness, ideal, idealism, ideality, idealization, ignis fatuus, illusion, imaginative exercise, immovability, impassibility, impassiveness, impassivity, impracticality, incompatibility, individualism, inexcitability, insociability, interest, isolation, lack of affect, lack of feeling, lack of touch, misbelief, misconception, mopishness, moroseness, narcissism, negativism, objectivity, obtuseness, overcompensation, passionlessness, personal aims, personal ambition, personal desires, personalism, pipe dream, play of fancy, poker face, possessiveness, privatism, projection, psychotaxis, quixotism, quixotry, rationalization, remoteness, resistance, romance, romanticism, self-absorption, self-admiration, self-advancement, self-centeredness, self-consideration, self-containment, self-deceit, self-deception, self-delusion, self-devotion, self-esteem, self-indulgence, self-interest, self-interestedness, self-jealousy, self-occupation, self-pleasing, self-seeking, self-serving, self-solicitude, self-sufficiency, selfishness, selfism, social incompatibility, sociological adjustive reactions, soullessness, spiritlessness, straight face, sublimation, substitution, sullenness, trick, trip, uncommunicativeness, uncompanionability, uncongeniality, unemotionalism, unexcitability, unfeeling, unfeelingness, unfriendliness, ungeniality, ungregariousness, unimpressibility, unimpressionableness, unpassionateness, unpracticalness, unrealism, unreality, unresponsiveness, unsociability, unsociableness, unsusceptibility, unsympatheticness, untouchability, utopianism, vapor, visionariness, wish fulfillment, wish-fulfillment fantasy, wishful thinking, withdrawal, wrong impression