What is "infantilism"

1894 in a psychological sense; see infantile + -ism. Earlier in a physiological sense, "retarded and imperfect physical development."

n. 1 An emotional dependency on being treated as an infant. 2 A sexual dependency on the sight or feeling of diapers, or being diapered.

1. n. an abnormal condition in which an older child or adult retains infantile characteristics

2. infantile behavior in mature persons

In medicine, Infantilism is an obsolete term for various, often unrelated disorders of human development, up to developmental disability, which consist of retention of the physical and/or psychological characteristics of early developmental stages ( infant, child) into a relatively advanced age.

Various types of infantilism were recognized, lumped together in the above superficial description. With better understanding of the endocrine system and genetic disorders, various disorders which included the word "infantilism" received other names. For example, Brissaud's infantilism, described by Édouard Brissaud in 1907 is now known as myxedema (a form of hypothyroidism); "intestinal infantilism" of Christian Archibald Herter is called coeliac disease. The Turner syndrome was described as "a syndrome of infantilism" by Henry Turner himself.

Terms such as "genital infantilism" (infantilism in development of genitals, hypogenitalism), or "sexual infantilism" (lack of sexual development after expected puberty or delayed puberty) may still be seen, and are considered to be synonyms of hypogonadism. "Somatic infantilism" refers to infantilism of overall bodily development. Speech infantilism is a speech disorder.

Similarly to some other medical terms ( cretinism, idiotism), "infantilism"/"infantile" may be used pejoratively (synonymous to " immature").

Infantilism may refer to:

• Paraphilic infantilism, a paraphilia involving the desire to wear diapers and/or fantasies of a return to infancy
• Psychosexual infantilism, a concept in psychosexual development introduced by Sigmund Freud

• Infantilism (physiological disorder) obsolete use of the term for some developmental disorders and disabilities
• Infantilism, also known as infantile speech, a speech disorder in which early speech stages persist beyond the age they are normally expected to fade
• Hypothalamic infantilism-obesity, or sexual infantilism, synonyms for adiposogenital dystrophy