When did you first hear about autism?

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Perhaps I had, sometime around a topic in 3rd grade class. Or perhaps conversations or the media that involves "special children" during times earlier than that.
I did heard about classic cases for vague reasons I couldn't bother to remember. And first I ever heard of Aspergers or High Functioning Autism was at the very time I got diagnosed.

Before diagnosis, never seen myself associated with it. It took me years, even after diagnosis did ever paid attention to it.

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After I got told I have it

First heard about autism in college in 1987. Only the more severe version was recognized then. Then i first heard about Asperger's in a magazine article in 2000. A light shined on me as it mostly described me, except for the no delayed speech portion. Then my not stimming delayed me from getting a diagnosis. I then saw a couple psychologists but still don't know if i got a formal diagnosis, though 1 report i saw for a different matter showed PDD-NOS.

I'd heard about Autism and Autism Speaks (I know, le bad, tre awful organization) a few times when I was younger but I really didn't know anything about it.
I started researching it this year. I came across Asperger's in a list of common misdiagnoses in an frustrated and furious attempt to find out for myself what's going on with me, since I received yet another misdiagnosis from the newest docs I was seeing in a very LONG line of doctors that are never sure what I have.

When I was in junior high there was a girl who somebody called "autistic." All I knew about her was that she didn't talk and she would hit herself extremely hard. That's what I thought autism was, to the exclusion of anything else.

I first heard of autism in the 1980's. My friends and I saw an awful film about a little boy who was "cured" of his autism. My friends misheard and were convinced that he had been cured of his "or-tism". I had to bite down hard on my tongue to stop myself from correcting them. (Autism! The kid had autism!) I did not meet an autistic child until much, much later ( 'twas the noughties, I recall) Little did I realise that there was one in the mirror all along...

In the 1970s (I was in high school). At the time, only extremely severe symptoms, in children, were recognized in the States.