English

Noun

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," British Medical Journal, vol. 334, no. 7605, p. 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 and Charles Smith, "Multifactorial Models for Familial Diseases in Man," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, vol. 138, no. 2, p. 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

• autism spectrum disorder