Is It "Autism" or "autism"?

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I've heard that diagnoses should only be capitalized if they are named after a person, like "Asperger's syndrome." But my psychology professor said to capitalize all diagnosis names. I will do whatever I must to get a good grade in her class, but what about casual writings? What do you guys prefer?

it's "αutism".

I don't capitalize it.

I have just completed a post grad in autism and Aspergers and was taught by my lecturer that autism does not need to be spelt with a capital unless at the beginning of a sentence.

Is it at the beginning of a sentence?
Autism is always capitalized at the beginning of a sentence.

Here’s my guess.

The full name of the diagnosis is Autism Spectrum Disorder or Autistic Disorder. You capitalise that. Autism is a more colloquial way to refer to it (like how the Russian Federation is referred to as just Russia). Unless it’s the first word of the sentance, you leave it lowercase: autism.

And Asperger is a person’s name, so you capitalise that no matter what.

They dont capitalize "bronchitis", or "dyslexia".
So I don't see why you need to capitalize "autistic".

But if you type "Asperger's" on a reply on this very website starting in lowercase the spellcheck will automatically change it to capitalized. Presumably because the diagnosis is named after a person's proper name.

Same with dog breeds. If you type "collie", or "dachshund", the spellcheck here leaves it lowercase, but if you type Pomeranian, or german shepherd or great dane it will automatically change Pomeranian to capitalize and it will put in that red underline under german and dane to tell you that its misspelled. That's because the capitalized breeds are named after place names. Chihuahua (just checking).

дutism


אutism

עutism?

Asperger in all its forms is always capitalized because it was Hans Asperger's name. That part is simple.

Autism is sometimes capitalized when it appears in a diagnostic name (or part of a business or organization name), as others have described here. Otherwise, it is written as autism.

What are "dutism" and "ʾutism" and "ʿutism"? :p

I've noticed that "Deaf" is often capitalised too.
The capitalisation indicates a group with their own characteristics and culture.

No it’s not, the word autism appears in the middle of sentences all the time, you misunderstand the question.

^I think they were saying that autism is always capitalized as long as it's at the beginning of a sentence (otherwise, it's not).

I say it should be written in all caps. AUTISM.

I am Autistic, with a capital A, and I do have autism, small a.

Huh?

How does THAT work? Are you saying that it's capitalized if its an adjective but not if it's a noun?

You can be nauseous, you can be nauseating, and you can have nausea, and you can even go "ad nauseum", without any form of the word being capitalized.

Autism is like nausea. Its a medical condition/diagnosis. Therefore it's a common noun. And not a proper noun. So its never capitalized even if it's turned into an adjective.