no info on older autistic women on Google

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Just use up time I decided to google the above topic. There was absolutely nothing listed on autistic women. Are you just as surprised as I am? Or would you expect it?

The only info it listed was the possiblities of an older woman giving birth to an autistic infant.

Do you think that it is so rare for a woman over the age of 60 to be autistic that there is no information on the topic?

I am rather disappointed.

I tried to look up adults with aspergers/autism and found very little information or resources. When I looked up females the only females I could find were children. I wish there was more resources out there for us adults. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 20. I'm glad I found this site since even my doctors didn't know I had it until my mother brought up after watching Oprah about a girl with aspergers. I'm not sure what the deal is, I guess Aspergers is still relatively new and hard to diagnose if one or a family doesn't do research. I went through one doctor after another and they knew I had "something" with misdiagnoses. I guess in females it is harder to diagnose because we a good portion of us are expected to act shy and nonvocal. We also probably don't act out as much as the males which makes it harder.

http://aspie-bird.blogspot.com/2006/08/ ... tists.html

This blog had an interesting tidbit--An anonymous posting about their 100 year old grandmother with autism!

Temple Grandin is 63.

Last edited by BTDT on 02 May 2011, 12:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Not surprised. To this day the belief that boys are more likely to be Autistic prevails.

There seems to be generally very little information for adults with AS. It still seems to be seen as a kids' thing, which is really annoying. I've been trying to find help online about having AS in the workplace (looking for a suitable career), and being a parent with AS (I'm trying to work out if I could cope with having a family), but all the results I get are advice for NT people for dealing with AS people.

Drives me nuts.

http://www.templegrandin.com/templegrandinbooks.html
Temple has written and co-authored books you may find useful.

there's gonna need to be resources soon... they've been diagnosing a lot of kids in the last decade... they won't stay kids forever...

I agree that the children who are being diagnosed now will need some information from the internet when they get older. But would it be the same information that I would be looking for as someone who was diagnosed only 2 1/2 years ago? I would think that their needs would be quite different than mine. In the future I think that since doctors are more aware of the symptoms of autism there would be less people being identified with the syndrome later in life.

Are there other people who are members on Wrong Planet who have never met another person with autism?

*Sarcasm alert* Silly Simmian. Didn't you know that people with AS disappear into thin air when they turn 18? Unless they are men and they marry of course. But every one else...poof, thin air. *End of sarcasm*

I thought that maybe most women with autism just became NTs on their 21st birthday. It happens just like it does in the Sims 2 game. On their birthday they twirl around in a puff of smoke and miraculously they are transformed. Ooops sorry I get caught up playing the Sims so much that I forget that real life isn't like the game.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03062.html

I think the lack of diagnosis pre-1980 may be due to the way NTs think--they may have had difficulty diagnosis autism based on its grouping with schizophrenia, before the two were separated in the DSM manual.

I've never met another diagnosed person, though I have met people that I have suspected might have AS.

And older autistic woman probably just went through their life... got married and had kids and did not work outside the home... had her quirks but just flew beneath the radar. Or maybe they end up the crazy old spinster aunt. Women especially in previous generation are not expected to be independant.

I'm friends with one girl who is diagnosed. I've met four other diagnosed people and a further three who probably are autistic.

There are a lot of misconceptions out there about high functioning autism in its various forms. some doctors/ therapists/ social workers think only children can be diagnosed with it, others think only males can be diagnosed with it. My impression is that a woman has to be really impaired to quickly get a diagnosis of autism. Otherwise she'll probably get a patchwork of different psychiatric diagnoses to cover her symptoms. The same is probably true for adults, in general, especially older adults, but I think more prevalent for women.

Truth is I have pretty much disappeared into the woodwork after I graduated from high school at the old age of 18. No one was listening carefully during my educational years, & they couldn't just stick me into one of their favorite disorders either since I was atypical for ADD, ADHD, learning disabled, etc. I was determined to have some learning issues & was put in special ed during my elementary years. We watched TV a lot in those classes....very educational! Not! My dad faded into the background too after getting out of school. Somehow he managed to hold down a job he kept until he retired after 25 years, & could focus solely on his special interest (antiques). He's still focused on them at 83. I have no doubt that he has Aspergers from all the research I have done. I'm pretty sure I have it too, but because I am squarely female in middle age, it's not possible according to the so called experts. But then they aren't experts in my life, only I can be qualified as such.

So yes, adults on the spectrum do exist. I would guess that there's a fair number out there. They may not be obvious, but we didn't all appear out of nowhere in the past 2 decades. Heck Aspergers himself came up with the DX back in the 1930s during the Nazi regime. Maybe those people who claim to know everything about mental health should do a little fact finding before automatically dismissing someone who may very well be on the spectrum. Who knows? They might actually learned a thing or two.