Autism is a complex developmental syndrome that occurs at an early age and lasts a lifetime. It belongs to the group of pervasive developmental disorders, along with disintegrative childhood disorder, Asperger's disorder, Rett's disorder, and atypical autism. The main characteristics that indicate autism are reduced social interaction, lack of nonverbal and verbal communication and repetitive patterns of behavior. The diagnosis of autism is made on the basis of the clinical picture and history of the disease, most often after the third year of the child's birth. Autism can not be cured, but the development of effective therapeutic methods can lead to significant improvement. The topic of this final paper is "Knowledge and attitudes of nursing students about autism." The paper contains two parts, general and research. In the first part, I covered the history of autism, its possible causes, the division of autism, the characteristics of autistic children, diagnostic and therapeutic methods, and finally the role of a nurse / technician in the care of people with autism. The second segment of the paper is based on the results of research aimed at determining the knowledge and attitudes of full-time nursing students about autism. The research was conducted on nursing students at the Faculty of Health Studies in Rijeka. A total of 59 full-time undergraduate students from the first to the third year enrolled in this research. The instrument for conducting the research was a survey questionnaire containing twenty-one questions.