when was autism first discovered

Autism was first referred to by the term "autism" in 1911 by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, who used it to describe a symptom of schizophrenia. However, autism as a distinct condition was first formally described in 1943 by American psychiatrist Leo Kanner. Kanner's seminal paper detailed a group of children with unique behaviors, which he called "early infantile autism," marking the first official recognition of autism as a separate condition from schizophrenia. Around the same time, in 1944, Hans Asperger described a similar condition now known as Asperger syndrome. Before these formal descriptions, autistic traits had been observed earlier, such as in 1799 by Jean Itard, and elaborated by Grunya Sukhareva in the 1920s, but these were not recognized widely at the time.