spectrum disorder

spectrum disorder (plural spectrum disorders)

1. (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".

• Most commonly used with reference to psychiatric disorders.

• autism spectrum disorder