"Milder Autism Typically Diagnosed Later In Girls"

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http://health.usnews.com/health-news/ar ... r-in-girls

I wonder if it's not that the symptoms are less severe, but that girls' social ability allows them to cope better.

My daughter had been diagnosed at age five, though I will admit, I had had suspicions prior to that.

Interesting that this suggests the opposite of what has been suggested by several others, namely, that girls go undiagnosed because their social skills are better than those of boys. Yet this articles is in agreement with at least one other on the point that boys tend to have more/more noticeable repetitive behaviors.

Same here, my daughter was 5 but we suspected she was a little delayed before then. Interestingly none of the professionals had the least suspicion till she was nearly preschoolage. Of course it hit us when she attended her first preschool and the teacher discreetly advised the headmaster there is something wrong with her. He did everything to have us remove her from the school including return our non-refundable deposit.

Now that I think back we were reluctant to label her with anything. One irritating aspect was the "i told you so" attitude of some the therapists who thought we made things worse by not having early intervention earlier. All water under the bridge now.

Not very long ago there was something in the news that girls on the autism spectrum were more severely affected than boys. Before that it was less severe. I may not understand it all the way.

It seems though like there is resistance to the idea that girls may be affected differently and that resistance gets in the way of really looking at what if any differences exist.

I think it has to do with that Autism, Asperger’s is seen as something male. And that the girls that have more severe problems that have problems that look more like boys will be caught earlier. But girls that have outwardly more “mild” problems will be ignored. They will be seen as less interesting and more capable of taking care of themselves. I believe that a lot of girls get treated for other things like anxiety, depression and eating disorders without the doctors seeing that there are underlying problems such as Autism/Asperger’s.

I think also that a lot of girls are better than boys at hiding their problems and internalizing. Boys usually act out and will be seen as problematic, and then they get help. Girls can go much longer without getting help. Girls are often also told that they have to act a certain way, be the ones that carries other people’s problems, that does not make it easy to voice their own problems.

For me it was just my shyness covered my symptoms. Quiet and rare speech, not talking to many people, avoiding loud places. I wouldn't say girls have a social mask. I sure don't.

I was never DXed, but it's likely I have it. I'm 37. My 7 year old daughter was diagnosed at around age 4.5... now in her case it was blazingly obvious. I tried like heck to get a diagnosis earlier, but no one would listen to me because she wasn't non verbal and was clearly quite bright. No one cared that she liked to lick windows or would memorize car insurance commercials because she could also read and do math. Her presentation was very text book, even though she is a girl she exhibits a lot of symptoms typical of boys.

Now my 5 year old... thats something else. She's been diagnosed with ADHD. But now we are going back and redoing... think she may just have milder/more "Girly" ASD than my older child. She has an interest in socializing, but typically fails miserably. With her, this is more subtle and if we weren't probing more may have just remained diagnosed with ADHD. If she does indeed have AS... I could see it getting missed in a lot of other girls tbh. Shes just... different.