Autism may be missed in girls

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Autism may be 'missed' in girls.

Might help explain why there are less of us girls here on the site...

It was certainly missed in me for all of my life...of course, I am 44, so no one was really looking for autism and Asperger's was not commonly diagnosed (although it was known). I was just considered a strange kid.

Thank you! Thank you! Yuss!

Yes, I firmly believe it's a case of autism/Asperger's manifesting slightly differently in females than in males with it. Women are more socially-minded, generally, and I often see cases of because the girl is making attempts to fit in, and doing a better job than her male counterparts, and attempting eye-contact, etc - things that autistic people supposedly aren't meant to do - the diagnosis is missed. "Oh she's just shy", "Oh she's just a bit awkward", "Oh no she can't have Asperger's she has a few friends".

I'm absolutely convinced there are just as many women as men with Asperger's and autism, it's simply that we get overlooked and everyone tells us that 'women on the spectrum are rare'.

Total agreement!

I can recall many (failed) attempts to fit in and act 'normal'.

I am a 20 year old male with AS and until and it was not until recently that the doctors started talking about aspeger's syndrome. So it seems very possible that many girls, and women are not being diagnosed because they are not showing the symptoms that males do.

This doesn't surprise me at all, though I do think some of the more typical girl behavior might have to do with cultural influences, and that young girls with the disorders can pick up on what is and is not expected of them.

yup

Finally!

Do any researchers study the physiological issues, rather than observe behavior?

I agree too! I find when I try to interect with a online community people think I weird, especially on my youtube videos.

That makes absolutely no sense. Females are much less likely to be socially impaired and therefore will have a less prevalence of things like autism/aspergers. A state of being can't be thought of as just being missed in specific instances, when the characteristic that the state of being is based on, is the same characteristic that is lacking in those instances. If social impairments are what autism is based on, and if a female doesn't have those impairments, then that female doesn't have autism. So a lower amount of females having social impairments would mean less females being autistic. But maybe gender parity could exist if the females counted as being autistic/aspergers, also included ones with far less than clinically significant social impairments or no social impairments at all.

You miss the point, so I'll rephrase:

Girls tend to blend in better, because the autistic or aspergers traits are very close to what is thought of as being 'girly' and 'normal' anyway. For example, because I'm so literal-minded, I take everything people say to heart. I don't imagine people say things they don't mean - I'm fine these days and will pick up on it generally (still have my moments!), but as a child I never did. But people just thought I was being sensitive, which is a 'female' characteristic. I was always very quiet and a bit nerdy when I was young, with major fixations and obsessions, but people just thought I was 'shy', again, a 'girly' trait. It wasn't the case at all though - I simply didn't understand how to fit in or how to socialise and communicate with my peers, so I stopped trying, because the bullying and laughter became too much.

In short, a lot of autistic/aspergers traits are ones that can manifest in a very similar way to what is thought of as the female 'norm', and when you add to that the female tendency to be social creatures and adults see the little aspie girl trying to fit in and talk to her peers, they assume she mustn't have Aspergers as people with autism 'don't want to make friends'. This means the diagnosis is missed and the true problems we need help with are overlooked because, although I can assure you it's every bit as strong and as difficult as it is in boys and it's certainly not easy in any way, it's more subtle. We try and hide it a lot more, and are in general more successful at that hiding, than boys - at least from my observations.

I usually heard that autistic traits were characteristic of males. Like that "extreme male" theory. But I hardly ever knew there was so much erroneous associations of shyness with what is really autism. I think if an impairment is really there, it can't be completely hidden from everyone, but only under certain circumstances where there is insufficient observation. If diagnosis is being missed because of the greater motivation to socialize in girls, then I think that either the people responsible for picking up on symptoms aren't witnessing or forwarding enough information about the difficulties exhibited in girls to the therapists, or the therapists responsible for making diagnoses have been operating with amazing professional incompetence or malfeasance. I mean if these impairments are present, they should be noticed eventually. So I'm not sure about what all of what is going on ultimately means.

Although I'm not so much now, as a child I was a very classic Asperger kid, but the only reason it was picked up was my parents starting working with autistic kids (LFA) and going to a course on Aspergers one day and going "Omg... that's our girl!". I think it's also partly to do with stereotypes - the Rain Man/savant/rocking-in-the-corner kind of cliché that people miss the more subtle cases. Another part of the social thing is that I know a lot of girls will make far more effort to be one of the crowd and not stand out, so very quickly learn to mask the inadequacies and blend as much as they can so they don't stand out - if they're deliberately trying to fit in and not stand out, it's going to be a lot harder for specialists to pick up on it.

Even now I hate people knowing I have Aspergers - it's only recently, with the support of my partner, that some of our friends have found out and I've started to be a little less shy about it.

That said, a 'learning style' test I took about 2 years before I was diagnosed paints an absolute classic picture of aspergers, and no teacher or 'learning specialist' picked up on it at all. Looking back at it now I'm horrified - how many other kids sent back answers that fit such a classic picture of autism yet nobody batted an eyelid?!

How are male and female Aspies different overall?

(I only see posts that regard the differences as to the ability to find dates)

Fundamentally, it still has the same signs and symptoms... obsessions, aversion to change, social ineptitude, poor time management, inability to read other people, etc etc. The better question to ask - and the one that would probably give you your answer - would be 'how are males and females different overall?'