Difference between male and female autism?

Page 5 of 6 [ 83 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6  Next

ValentineWiggin
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 May 2011
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,907
Location: Beneath my cat's paw

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.


_________________
"Such is the Frailty
of the human Heart, that very few Men, who have no Property, have any Judgment of their own.
They talk and vote as they are directed by Some Man of Property, who has attached their Minds
to his Interest."


qwan
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

User avatar

Joined: 1 Jan 2012
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Posts: 231
Location: Great(!) Britain

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. ^^



Bun
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Jan 2012
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,356

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.


_________________
Double X and proud of it / male pronouns : he, him, his


EXPECIALLY
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 20 Oct 2011
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 701

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.


_________________
AD/HD BAP.

HDTV...

Whatever.


Rascal77s
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Nov 2011
Age: 46
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,725

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.



SpiritBlooms
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Nov 2009
Age: 67
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,024

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
Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

User avatar

Joined: 22 Apr 2012
Age: 60
Gender: Female
Posts: 29
Location: USA

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.


_________________
Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern. ~ Alfred North Whitehead (1943)


Matt62
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Jan 2012
Age: 62
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,230

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



Orr
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Jun 2011
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 569

04 May 2012, 7:05 pm

I have a pee pee.


_________________
'You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,' said Alice. 'Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called "Jabberwocky"?'


ValentineWiggin
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 May 2011
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,907
Location: Beneath my cat's paw

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.


_________________
"Such is the Frailty
of the human Heart, that very few Men, who have no Property, have any Judgment of their own.
They talk and vote as they are directed by Some Man of Property, who has attached their Minds
to his Interest."


ValentineWiggin
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 May 2011
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,907
Location: Beneath my cat's paw

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.


_________________
"Such is the Frailty
of the human Heart, that very few Men, who have no Property, have any Judgment of their own.
They talk and vote as they are directed by Some Man of Property, who has attached their Minds
to his Interest."


Verdandi
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 54
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)

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



XFilesGeek
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Jul 2010
Age: 40
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 6,031
Location: The Oort Cloud

05 May 2012, 10:38 am

If there are "differences" between male and female autistics, I imagine they're similar to the "differences" observed between men and women in the general population (whether these "differences are innate or cultural, or both, and to what extent, I will leave alone for now).

My current working hypothesis as to the primary reason why males are DXed more often than females is as follows:

Males are much more likely to express anger, confusion, and aggression physically, meaning their behavior problems are perceived as more threatening; therefore, they get diagnosed faster. That males are more prone to physical violence can be confirmed by a walk through any one of our nation's prison systems. This is true for all cultures throughout history.

Of course, there's a host of other cultural assumptions at play, such as that "female problems" are often attributed to "emotions" and brushed-off as unimportant, or that people have been shown to treat infants differently based on whether the infant was presented as male or female, so boys and girls have to learn to respond to different social cues (and that's bound to have an effect on a social communication disorder).

As for myself, I'm "gender neutral" in both physical appearance and cognitive ability. The "right-brained/left-brained" thing is a myth based on a misunderstanding of split-brain experiments conducted in the 1960s. I'm highly creative, but I'm suspected to have some rather profound visual-spatial deficits. I've given up trying to determining if my brain is "male" or "female" because I've found that classifying brains as such is ridiculous and not reflective of nature.


_________________
"If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced."

-XFG (no longer a moderator)


Joe90
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 26,492
Location: UK

05 May 2012, 3:32 pm

OK, I'm just generalizing from a personal experience here, but I think females with MILD cases of Autism are afraid of being different or ridiculed in public or by friends because they want to fit in. I think this stems from having typical female traits in them, but again I'm not sure if this is true or not. I'm no exception to this, all my life I've been wanting to fit in and have friends and not be different, no matter how much effort it took. Part of it is natural too, I do like to look presentable and behave reasonably, something in me doesn't want to flap my hands in public or do anything else like that to appear unusual, and I do worry about what other people think of me and so on.

But I don't know if the same goes to all female Aspies, I've never met another female Aspie in person before so I'm not trying to overrate it or anything.


_________________
Female


NeueZiel
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 28 Apr 2012
Age: 30
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,330
Location: Kapustin Yar

06 May 2012, 10:49 am

Male Autism (nomatter how good or bad guy looks): Ewwww lol! Grow up and man up! I bet you're a virgin..never had the nice touch of a female huh? That'll change you. Hahaha, I look at aspies, make believe illness. You just need to get smacked around some and your parents probably didn't beat you enough. ILL SHOW YOU SOME DISCIPLINE LITTLE BABY. Don't wike this? TOO BAD, LIFE ISN'T FAIR. DEAL WITH.
YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO FACE THE MUSIC, BE MORE CONFIDANT AND GET OVER YOUR PRETEND ILLNESS.

Female autms: awww, that's like so cool! I think its so neat than you have this eccentricity! You like this obscure thing! Whoa cool, tell me more about it. Did I ever tell you how much I really liked this one thing you like? You've really opened it up to me...hey..you wanna go hang out sometime? Awwww, I think your awkwardness is sweet.


COUNTERPOINT: Aspie girls probably have to worry about being taken advantage of and raped a lot more than us guys. I hope a smart aspie girl can see through the lies of most people.


I will say this though: most female aspies I know seem to be of the "cooler" hip variety versus the terrible obsessive kind.



Who_Am_I
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Age: 40
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,632
Location: Australia

06 May 2012, 5:42 pm

Quote:
Female autms: awww, that's like so cool! I think its so neat than you have this eccentricity! You like this obscure thing! Whoa cool, tell me more about it. Did I ever tell you how much I really liked this one thing you like? You've really opened it up to me...hey..you wanna go hang out sometime? Awwww, I think your awkwardness is sweet.


Not quite.

One of the differences between male and female autism is that males generally don't have to put up with BS like this and having their difficulties dismissed constantly.

"Oh, you don't ever have to worry about homelessness, just find a man!"- yeah, prostitution is what every girl wants. And of course, the possibility of abuse that you can only escape through homelessness, that's nothing to worry about. After all, you could always go stay with a friend... oh, wait. Asperger's.

"But girls are more naturally social. "- Oh yes, which makes it so much easier when you're just as socially impaired as a boy but expected to be better at it. That doesn't increase the bullying and being treated as less than human at all.

"Just flutter your eyelashes and everyone will love you."- Just go stab yourself with a rusty screwdriver, ok? Maybe you could try wearing tight, provocative jeans and everyone will love you.

"Guys find social awkwardness cute though!"- No, generally they find it exploitable. They may find shyness, or what they think is shyness, cute at first, but when they realise that you really are clueless socially, they generally go looking for someone who is better at normality.


_________________
Music Theory 101: Cadences.
Authentic cadence: V-I
Plagal cadence: IV-I
Deceptive cadence: V- ANYTHING BUT I ! !! !
Beethoven cadence: V-I-V-I-V-V-V-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I
-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I! I! I! I I I