Difference between male and female autism?

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houla
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04 May 2012, 3:10 pm

I'm a woman with an apparently "male" brain, with advanced degrees and I am good at most areas of math (it's a pretty big subject area), so I guess I sound arrogant.

I've found this thread very confusing, so I've reread it a couple of times and I've come to the conclusion that observations in it explain why the majority of people mistakenly assume that I'm gay when they meet me. I simply don't seem to fit or have been aware of all of these gender expectations. Huh, I guess I learned something today :!:


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04 May 2012, 3:39 pm

This is from the original paper [that AS is defined as today], just an FYI and all:

Quote:
The syndrome appears to be considerably more common in boys than in girls. Asperger originally believed it to be confined to males, though he modified this view later (personal communication). Wolff & Barlow (1979) mentioned that the clinical picture could be seen in girls. In their series the male:female ratio was 9:1. In the present author's series there were 15 boys and 4 girls with the syndrome in fairly typical form, and 13 boys and 2 girls who had many of the features. The girls tended to appear superficially more sociable than the boys, but closer observation showed that they had the same problems of two-way social interaction.


As for classic autism, they say the presentation is similar, except females may have more incidence of mental retardation.



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04 May 2012, 4:06 pm

houla wrote:
I'm a woman with an apparently "male" brain, with advanced degrees and I am good at most areas of math (it's a pretty big subject area), so I guess I sound arrogant.

I've found this thread very confusing, so I've reread it a couple of times and I've come to the conclusion that observations in it explain why the majority of people mistakenly assume that I'm gay when they meet me. I simply don't seem to fit or have been aware of all of these gender expectations. Huh, I guess I learned something today :!:


I've had close female friends who probably also had this male wiring, though l neve measured their fingers or anything.

Most of them were straight but lots of people thought they were gay. They looked pretty feminine, just like I do and I actually am gay.

I think we all just give off the same vibe.


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houla
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04 May 2012, 4:15 pm

Hi Expecially,
I'm sorry but I don't understand this:

Quote:
I've had close female friends who probably also had this male wiring, though l neve measured their fingers or anything.


Do you mind explaining?

I don't know if I look feminine or not. I guess I just don't think about that. I mostly wear baggy jeans, sweatshirts, and a ball cap to help shade the sun. I have short hair that I chop off whenever it gets long enough to bother me, and I don't wear makeup, so I guess I don't fit the magazine version of a middle aged woman.

I like this:
Quote:
I think we all just give off the same vibe.

:D
It's interesting for me to read what other autistic women have to say.


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ValentineWiggin
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04 May 2012, 4:17 pm

I don't know why the syndrome itself would be different-
something with a neurological component, men and women already having different brains,
and layered atop that extremely different culturalizations will naturally produce differences in male and female Autistics..
for the same reasons male and female NEUROTYPICALS are different.

The problem is that Autism is too often defined clinically by the traits seen in males.
I suspect the whole "males outnumbering females" bit is bull-
how do you develop criteria studying only males,
leading to more males being diagnosed with it,
and then conclude the syndrome itself affects primarily males?
It's the height of fallacious thinking.


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qwan
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04 May 2012, 4:31 pm

ValentineWiggin wrote:
The problem is that Autism is too often defined clinically by the traits seen in males.
I suspect the whole "males outnumbering females" bit is bull-
how do you develop criteria studying only males,
leading to more males being diagnosed with it,
and then conclude the syndrome itself affects primarily males?
It's the height of fallacious thinking.


<3 Thank you.
I was just wondering what these actual differences where that females have and that aren't typically included in the criteria. But I whole-heartedly agree with what you've said.
Couldn't have put it better myself. ^^



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04 May 2012, 4:36 pm

qwan wrote:
So I've read that many females fail to get diagnosed due to the criteria leaning towards the more male symptoms and that females display symptoms of autism/aspergers differently.

Can any one mention any of these actually differences or point me in the direction of some extensive research on the matter?

So far I've only found the speculation that females are taught to be more verbal and sociable and to orientate their thoughts on the collective rather than themselves, meaning they may learn to mask some symptoms and appear more neurotypical as a result.
How ever, I haven't found anything that suggests how females display their autism, and how one diagnoses it with gender differences in mind (although I'm under the assumption the main issue is that this generally doesn't happen anyway).

I'm assuming it's little more than a theory at this point in time, but I'd be interested to hear of any personal accounts or opinions on this matter as well as some studies any have heard of or anything that might help me understand this really.

I think there's just more sympathy for males, they'll have ways to medicalise their problems while women with similar symptoms would be considered rude/misbehaving, even by psychiatrists.


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04 May 2012, 4:37 pm

houla wrote:
Hi Expecially,
I'm sorry but I don't understand this:
Quote:
I've had close female friends who probably also had this male wiring, though l neve measured their fingers or anything.


Do you mind explaining?

I don't know if I look feminine or not. I guess I just don't think about that. I mostly wear baggy jeans, sweatshirts, and a ball cap to help shade the sun. I have short hair that I chop off whenever it gets long enough to bother me, and I don't wear makeup, so I guess I don't fit the magazine version of a middle aged woman.

I like this:
Quote:
I think we all just give off the same vibe.

:D
It's interesting for me to read what other autistic women have to say.

2D4D ratio is how I determined my brain was "male". But I still consider myself a woman lol.

And I scored as male on one of these gender tests but very weakly so.
The way you dress will make people think you're gay. Unless you're extremely feminine in your attitude.

Sometimes I can sense if a woman who dressed that way is straight and I've been right, once I actually thought a woman who dressed that way was straight and she was a lesbian.

I think the reason is that the clothes give off a vibe of being relaxed and unconcerned about your appearance which isn't "feminine".

I don't walk around in high heels but I dress like the average woman and so have the other women I've known who were mistaken for lesbians, we all just have that vibe. Somehow I have kind of a butch vibe, I really have no masculine interests though.

But I am NT, sorry to accidentally deceive you lol.


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Rascal77s
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04 May 2012, 4:38 pm

What would be interesting to compare is the amount of friends AS males and AS females have. I mean close friends. I suspect it will be higher for females.



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04 May 2012, 6:28 pm

Rascal77s wrote:
What would be interesting to compare is the amount of friends AS males and AS females have. I mean close friends. I suspect it will be higher for females.
I suspect it wouldn't be as high for females as you suspect. Learning social skills and making close friends aren't the same thing. My social skills are part of my fake NT persona and more of a shield, a defense mechanism, than anything else. It doesn't make me friends.



houla
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04 May 2012, 6:36 pm

Expecially wrote:

Quote:
2D4D ratio is how I determined my brain was "male".


I googled this. My ring finger is longer than my index finger which would seem to be consistent with the "male" brain scores I received on the Empathy and Systematizing tests. It is rather interesting.

Expecially wrote:
Quote:
The way you dress will make people think you're gay.


I find that very strange.

Expecially wrote:
Quote:
Unless you're extremely feminine in your attitude.


Since I'm not sure what this means, I'm pretty sure that my attitude is not feminine, unless it is unwittingly so...

Expecially wrote:
Quote:
But I am NT, sorry to accidentally deceive you lol.


No worries, I found your posts highly informative and very interesting; except that I'll probably be staring at people's hands for a while.


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Matt62
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04 May 2012, 6:55 pm

Actually, there does seem to be a bias towards males being autistic. More in line with genetics, something to do with the sex chromosomes??
Anyway, 7 to 1 are telling, even if you are a believer in statistics.
Mis-diagnoses are certainly a problem, but then they are for ALL autistics until very, very recently.

Sincerely,
Matthew



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04 May 2012, 7:05 pm

I have a pee pee.


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04 May 2012, 11:05 pm

Matt62 wrote:
Actually, there does seem to be a bias towards males being autistic. More in line with genetics, something to do with the sex chromosomes??
Anyway, 7 to 1 are telling, even if you are a believer in statistics.
Mis-diagnoses are certainly a problem, but then they are for ALL autistics until very, very recently.

Sincerely,
Matthew


Diagnosed.


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ValentineWiggin
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04 May 2012, 11:06 pm

SpiritBlooms wrote:
Rascal77s wrote:
What would be interesting to compare is the amount of friends AS males and AS females have. I mean close friends. I suspect it will be higher for females.
I suspect it wouldn't be as high for females as you suspect. Learning social skills and making close friends aren't the same thing. My social skills are part of my fake NT persona and more of a shield, a defense mechanism, than anything else. It doesn't make me friends.


Same, and I'm only able to act this way once in a while, under the best of circumstances.
I don't have any friends, close or no.
When not in a relationship, I'm utterly-alone, parents aside.


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04 May 2012, 11:46 pm

Matt62 wrote:
Actually, there does seem to be a bias towards males being autistic. More in line with genetics, something to do with the sex chromosomes??
Anyway, 7 to 1 are telling, even if you are a believer in statistics.
Mis-diagnoses are certainly a problem, but then they are for ALL autistics until very, very recently.

Sincerely,
Matthew


It's not reasonable to ignore factors like this when discussing diagnostic trends:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 101332.htm