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spectrum disorder. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
spectrum disorder, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
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English
Noun
spectrum disorder (plural spectrum disorders)
- (medicine, psychology, pathology) A physiological or psychological disorder which may take any of a range of forms or be indicated by any of a range of symptoms.
2007 June 9, Lisa Hitchen, “Doctors advise women not to drink alcohol during pregnancy”, in British Medical Journal, volume 334, number 7605, page 1186:However, there is no reliable evidence on the incidence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in the United Kingdom.
- 2008 Dec., Nancy M. Ridgway at al., "Doctors advise women not to drink alcohol during pregnancy," vol. 35, no. 4, p. 623:
- Today, many researchers believe that compulsive buying should be considered as exhibiting elements of both obsessive-compulsive and impulse-control disorders, calling this theory obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorder.
1975, R. N. Curnow, Charles Smith, “Multifactorial Models for Familial Diseases in Man”, in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, volume 138, number 2, page 165:[T]he proportion of relatives shown as affected with schizophrenia actually consists of definite plus uncertain diagnoses of schizophrenia plus a hard-to-define category of "schizophrenia spectrum disorder".
Usage notes
- Most commonly used with reference to psychiatric disorders.
Derived terms