A computer-implemented method for assigning a probabilistic diagnosis of autism for an individual patient or a probabilistic measure of a clinical outcome for an individual patient having cancer, the method comprising: (a) obtaining a segmented genomic profile, GP (indvl), of DNA extracted from any cell of the individual patient being assigned a probabilistic diagnosis of autism or from a tumor cell of the individual patient having cancer being assigned a probabilistic measure of a clinical outcome, said GP (indvl) comprising information on the copy number of a plurality of discrete segments of the genome, or one or more portions of the individual patient's genome; and being characterized by: (b) obtaining from the segmented genomic profile, GP (indvl), a genomic perturbation index value PI (i) correlating the proximity and frequency of breakpoint events within a genomic region of the individual patient and incorporating two or more of: (i) the number of said discrete segments; (ii) the lengths or areas of said discrete segments; and (iii) the distribution of the lengths or areas of at least two adjacent segments; and (c) comparing the perturbation index value PI (i) to a database comprising a plurality of entries, GP, each entry comprising (i) clinical information pertaining to a different patient and any cell of that patient, in the case of autism, or a tumor cell of that patient, in the case of cancer; and (ii) a genomic perturbation index value derived from a genomic profile of the different patient, determined as in step (b); whereby a similarity between the individual patient's perturbation index value PI (i) and one or more genomic perturbation index values of the GP database is evaluated and used to assign a probabilistic diagnosis of autism for the individual patient or the probabilistic measure of a clinical outcome for the individual patient having cancer. (a) obtaining a segmented genomic profile, GP (indvl), of DNA extracted from any cell of the individual patient being assigned a probabilistic diagnosis of autism or from a tumor cell of the individual patient having cancer being assigned a probabilistic measure of a clinical outcome, said GP (indvl) comprising information on the copy number of a plurality of discrete segments of the genome, or one or more portions of the individual patient's genome; and being characterized by: (b) obtaining from the segmented genomic profile, GP (indvl), a genomic perturbation index value PI (i) correlating the proximity and frequency of breakpoint events within a genomic region of the individual patient and incorporating two or more of: (i) the number of said discrete segments; (ii) the lengths or areas of said discrete segments; and (iii) the distribution of the lengths or areas of at least two adjacent segments; and (i) the number of said discrete segments; (ii) the lengths or areas of said discrete segments; and (iii) the distribution of the lengths or areas of at least two adjacent segments; and (c) comparing the perturbation index value PI (i) to a database comprising a plurality of entries, GP, each entry comprising (i) clinical information pertaining to a different patient and any cell of that patient, in the case of autism, or a tumor cell of that patient, in the case of cancer; and (ii) a genomic perturbation index value derived from a genomic profile of the different patient, determined as in step (b); whereby a similarity between the individual patient's perturbation index value PI (i) and one or more genomic perturbation index values of the GP database is evaluated and used to assign a probabilistic diagnosis of autism for the individual patient or the probabilistic measure of a clinical outcome for the individual patient having cancer. (i) clinical information pertaining to a different patient and any cell of that patient, in the case of autism, or a tumor cell of that patient, in the case of cancer; and (ii) a genomic perturbation index value derived from a genomic profile of the different patient, determined as in step (b);