When autism is described as...

Post Reply New Topic

...an "extreme variant" of the male brain, exactly which characteristics of the "male brain" are in question?

The "Extreme Male Brain" hypothesis of autism is controversial. It first assumes there is something that can be called a "male brain" and further that this can manifest is some extreme form. This conceptualization has a quite a few holes in it.

its hard to know if the difference between men and woman are mostly genetic or mostly enviromental, so to me the original premise rings a bit weird in my ears, just doesnt seem right.

in my mind it would make much more sense if it was worded
'it usually presents with similar behavior to stereotypical males, just more extreme'

dont know if this was of any value?

I assume it has something to do with not sugercoating information.

This is interesting, I swear I do not think like a female. On here I have a hard time distinguishing sometimes, and I'm often very surprised when I realize it is a female talking. I can't tell you how many times I read different people over and over and then they say, I'm a girl or female or refer to their child or their husband. I'm like WOT, no clue it was a girl talking. Then when there are little 'pc' cat fights I'm like ... oops 'scratch' and I can tell it is a girl and she trying to hide she got her feelings hurt. The guys that get their feelings hurt are just mean and cold back...sometimes demeaning and mocking...but the girls get out the nails....gently but ouch. raaarrrrrh

This is a huge issue for me. I have a hard time with being able to understand the female brain, I don't have one. I get b***hed out, herded around, and set straight absolutely constantly. I work for nothing and get talked into slavery. I cower like a dog when I hear that voice raaarrrrh, swipe, ouch. I love cars and engines and whatever goes bang and smashes.

pathetic but so much more fun

I don't believe this description has any factual basis.

Dr Baron-cohen actually made a small scale experiment , where he tested the level of testosterone in unborn and then born babies and then kept a record of the number of those kids who had high testosterone, the number who had developped a form of autism, and the correlation between the two. I assume the "male " part of the name is linked to the testosterone levels, although Baron-cohen himself described some of the traits he linked to "maleness", like lack of empathy and preference for systems.
I'm a woman, so i won't even go into what i think of it, and i'd like to know how many NT males have sensory issues, or are we going to learn that this is just a coexisting weirdness that has nothing to do with autism?
edit: he's actually going to do this experiment again on a larger scale, no idea if it's been started yet, just to prove himself right.

What does this mean for girls on the autism spectrum? It confuses me. I don't think my brain is extremely male, but perhaps more so than most females'.

I think it's an interesting theory. Men are literal thinkers, and people on the spectrum are very literal. You could suggest that to compensate for the sensory overload, the body produces more testosterone to compensate, and so that person becomes more adept to systemizing. It's an interesting theory, one that I think has a lot of merit to it, but it's just a theory. There is still a lot of work to be done on it, and maybe it's just a symptom of something else rather than an actual explanation. I think the theory makes sense in a lot of ways.

What I've also notice is that people tend to describe autism as a whole different thing.

Some say it's a disability.
Some say it's mental health.
Some even say its a disease.

I think there's just too many ways to describe what autism is.

Testosterone theory falls apart if I'm an example. I definitely fall somewhere in the spectrum, including many sensory issues. But Ehlers-Danlos syndrome gives me low testosterone.

i am a female with AS and when i was growing up, i always sort of wondered if i might have elevated testosterone. well, last year i had blood work done for the first time, and it turns out that my body does actually produce too much testosterone, and i am now taking medication to lower it. i just always knew somehow.

My understanding of 'male brain' in this situation is not to do with testosterone as an adult, but it's role on the development of the brain while within the womb. There is a 'male brain' and a 'female brain' - not all men have 'male brains' and vice versa. It makes sense to me that autism is related to 'male brains' given as autism is more common (or at least easier to spot) in males, and women can have 'male brains' which seems to be a lot more common amongst female aspies and autistic's - many female aspies will tell you that they aren't 'typical' women. I would hazard a guess that if we all took a sex ID test the majority of us, males and females, would have 'male brains'.

Although with that said the one person I know to have been tested by a psychologist, and found to have a 'female brain', is my ex (transexual male-to-female) who is autistic - if autism is linked to 'male brain' that doesn't really explain her, or others like her who are on the spectrum but don't fit into having a 'male brain'. *shrugs*

Did that even make any sense?