<Li> Preempted diagnoses . Although the DSM - IV rules out concurrent diagnosis of many other conditions along with autism, the full criteria for Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Tourette syndrome, and other of these conditions are often present and these comorbid diagnoses are increasingly accepted . </Li> <Li> Sleep problems affect about two - thirds of individuals with ASD at some point in childhood . These most commonly include symptoms of insomnia such as difficulty in falling asleep, frequent nocturnal awakenings, and early morning awakenings . Sleep problems are associated with difficult behaviors and family stress, and are often a focus of clinical attention over and above the primary ASD diagnosis . </Li> <P> A few examples of autistic symptoms and treatments were described long before autism was named . The Table Talk of Martin Luther, compiled by his notetaker, Mathesius, contains the story of a 12 - year - old boy who may have been severely autistic . Luther reportedly thought the boy was a soulless mass of flesh possessed by the devil, and suggested that he be suffocated, although a later critic has cast doubt on the veracity of this report . The earliest well - documented case of autism is that of Hugh Blair of Borgue, as detailed in a 1747 court case in which his brother successfully petitioned to annul Blair's marriage to gain Blair's inheritance . The Wild Boy of Aveyron, a feral child caught in 1798, showed several signs of autism; the medical student Jean Itard treated him with a behavioral program designed to help him form social attachments and to induce speech via imitation . </P> <P> The New Latin word autismus (English translation autism) was coined by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in 1910 as he was defining symptoms of schizophrenia . He derived it from the Greek word autós (αὐτός, meaning "self"), and used it to mean morbid self - admiration, referring to "autistic withdrawal of the patient to his fantasies, against which any influence from outside becomes an intolerable disturbance". </P>

When was autism first recognised as a condition