The term "autism" was first coined in 1911 to refer to adult schizophrenia, but was later described in 1943 by Dr. Leo Kanner in his observations of 11 children who exhibited similar behaviors of withdrawing from human contact. Throughout the 1940s and 1960s, the medical community viewed autism as a form of schizophrenia. It was not until the 1960s that doctors began to properly understand autism by identifying its core symptoms and exploring potential treatments.