Asperger's Syndrome: The invisible female

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All of my testing which indicates NVLD was done by a psychologist or learning disabilities specialist. I imagine if your motor skills are bad enough you might end up at a neurologist, but bad motor skills can be masked or can be subtle, and one can learn to compensate for them.

I was quoting the article, but I think the point was "How you get diagnosed depends on who you see." I don't know enough to have an opinion on it, though. I had one on schizoid PD and was shot down pretty thoroughly.

In books Ive read recently is has been written that women tend to go undiagnosed more often perhaps and that it could be due to the fact that some cope better with difficulties that are easier to mask or something and they go undetected.

I was told by a psychiatrist that I didn't have Asperger's because of my femaleness and that I had little verbal communication ability with her.

I can see many problems here.

1. Dismissing autistic girls (even if it is 1:10 or 1:4, that doesn't mean we're rare.
2. A high verbal IQ implies one is capable of verbal, reciprocal communication.
3. That someone of my age at that time could not even be considered for anything but Asperger's, because this is my only conclusion for having an insistence with verbal communication which is associated with AS (my verbal IQ is average anyway).

This psychiatrist also stated that lots of children are misdiagnosed with autism when they really just have an anxiety disorder. I really doubt this.

I high verbal IQ does not always translate to verbal reciprocal communication. I know because I have a high verbal IQ but I'm certainly not the best conversationalist in the world.

The "verbal" portion of these tests is as such....I'm not using the proper names because I don't know them.

Sentence recall: They have you listen to progressively longer sentences and repeat them back. I have aced this test on more than one occasion, however I am only able to do this much as someone with echolalia can do it. I don't attach meaning to the words. I have no idea what I'm saying. I'm just repeating back the sound.

Definitions and Synonyms: You are given a word and asked to describe it's meaning or give a synonym.

Fill in the blank: You are given a sentence and asked to fill in the missing word. There is a verbally administered and written form of this sub test I think.

The problem is, one can score high on these sections during the test but not be able to implement these abilities very well in practice due to processing deficits, or simply the way the person deals with the information in real time.

Despite my ability to repeat back sentences, I do not follow verbal instructions, or even verbal conversations very well, depending on the nature. If you are giving me a long list of verbal instructions, it's all really just going to go into a "bin" in my head, with a bunch of holes in it, for sorting later, and if I can't sort it in time, it's all going to leak out.

If I'm given written instructions, I can manage.

So I'm only able to utilize my high verbal IQ in the context of reading and writing.

I've recently come across a young lass who was diagnosed with NVLD by the Dyslexia association which was assessing if she met the criteria for (suprise!) dyslexia.

Reading the assessment she gave me made for some immensly painful reading. All of their conclusions was that she basically didn't have Dyslexia and the reasons they gave were practically a list of asperger/autism traits.

Hopefully were gonna help her out to get a diagnosis now.

I'm amazed how many undiagnosed female aspies are out there. Seriously must be over 60% of my caseload sometimes

I apologize for not reading the articles throughly and still responding. I do intend to read them later however

I have 1 question:

In my articles about female autism/aspergers, it states that girls will commonly take interest in literature? Is that really true, I know I didnt, in fact I have a diagnosed reading disorder, I cant stand fiction, my mom tried to push it on me when I was younger. The only reading I do is factual/scientific articles. Well that explains these twins in my high school who were very socially closed off, 1 was rather socially awkward, they both loved reading, english, literature, and hated math.

Dont get me wrong, I love aspergirls, it was a great read, Rudy Simones extremely relateable. However I highly question some of Rudy Simones claims. There are certain important claims she made which highly lacked scientific basis.

I think we need a hell of a lot more research into this area. I feel like I've slipped through the cracks being a bi-racial girl as opposed to a nerdy, irritable white guy like the stereotype says all Aspies are. I was always a very self-sufficient child too - my brother was born when I was 2, and even then I could be trusted by myself for hours, would always do as my parents asked, could figure anything out, etc. I was just smart and quiet as far as they were concerned. And now the few people I've mentioned this to (apart from one other girl who confessed to also having suspected it in herself for a few years) think I'm being silly to think I might have Asperger's. Because, after all, they would have seen it in my childhood if I was, right? </sarcasm> It's really irritating, and it's the main reason I don't particularly think I'll get an official diagnosis. I see the traits in myself, but there are few people willing to look at women, and adult women especially, to seriously consider the presence of Asperger's syndrome.

Yes there needs to be more research.

But it is increasingly coming to the knowledge of service providers. Particularly in relation to the Autism Act 2009. That the UK has probably got a vast undiagnosed/misdiagnosed or unrecognised population of aspergers/HFA individuals. The overwhelming majority of which will be female, the overwhelming majority of which will have normal/high IQ the overwhelming majority of which may well be living out life without coming to the attention of mental health services or any other diagnosticians because they have probably had better luck at finding a niche then their equivilant male peers.

There was recently an article published in a professional journal that came to light recently that has proposed a theory that the MAJORITY of people at the asperger syndrome end of the autistic spectrum are women. I'm trying to find this article but no to no avail so far. I think its probably not far from the truth in my professional opinion.

I'm just saying prevalence estimates have varied widely right from the beginning (Hans) but even recently estimates such as 86% have come out as have "no more than in the general population.... as I said...that is prevalence of NLD among people with AS….. estimates have varied .... I can post links to studies that have these estimates…some are secondary sources though……but you're right the original definition of AS (Hans) was very different than what is used today

i really liked the third link, thank you. could definitely relate.

While I do think that there are more males with AS (since males statistically have more neurodevelopmental problems), I feel that the ratio is probably more like 2:1, not 10:1. And I'm a female with AS who has a very good female Aspie friend, so clearly, we're out there.

I have a diagnosis of NVLD based on a neurocognitive profile and I have an assessment for Aspergers in a couple of weeks, the reasons for this are because I have restrictive interests and self stimulating behavior, both of which are not supposed to be present in NVLD.

I believe NVLD helps as a separate diagnostic criteria but I think it perhaps should be a sub category to Aspergers (Aspergers: NVLD type) or at least there needs to be a better recognition of comorbidity. For instance if someone is found to have NVLD they should be immediately screened for Aspergers.

I do believe NVLD can mask some Aspergers symptoms - deficits in visual memory, makes it harder to remember things, deficits in executive functions such as planning and organizing makes it harder to categorise, or organise information, deficits in mathematics and understanding numbers can mask the stereotype of being great at maths or science if you have an ASD. If someone has a very high verbal IQ, as often found with NVLD this can also mask quite a few of the social impairments.

I think there are many women out there who are suffering in silence and those who are high functioning and do try to get help are often turned away or misdiagnosed with BPD or depression. It is because we are fighting stereotype, it was the NVLD diagnosis that finally helped me get my foot in the door for an aspergers assessment - I still had to fight for it though.

I think it's because people sometimes "see what they want to see" with the mental filters and preconceived notions that they have. A girl isn't a boy, so why worry about a "male" condition?

If someone were to get good grades at school, but struggle with initiating conversation. The good grades would override any weaknesses in the minds of the observers.

I know that this has been the case with me.

People can be very resistant and fearful of ideas that they're unfamiliar with.

Even when I was getting help, an aide and therapy at school, my parents and others were very reluctant to slap a label on me. Someone in my family said that I had no learning difficulties at all and that everyone else was deluded.

Later on, that person said:
"Ha! You don't have learning difficulties, look at your good grades. I was right, they were all stupid and wrong. You're just shy, I was like that when I was your age. You don't have anything wrong with you. They are wrong."

What about social and emotional learning difficulties then?
What about my being unable to initiate a conversation?
What about feeling humiliated when forced to do groupwork?
What about the humiliation of being "shepherded about" by well meaning peers trying to talk me through how to talk to people?

Something social's clearly going on, whatever label you want to slap on it.

Oh and my friends talking about little Asperger boys who kept burning their hands on hot stoves didn't help me at all. Neither did the "Autism and the Extreme Male Brain" talk that took place at College. It might have helped people understand men and little boys, but it didn't help me. People talking about autism didn't help me. It made me feel rotten and sad.

It didn't help me to understand why women are supposed to like standing on slopes or why women liked collect high heeled shoes that to me resembled horrid medieval torture devices. Some disgusting inventions like that I think are a waste of natural resources and serve to segregate people, not unite them. This makes me feel depressed.

I could see that many women clearly enjoyed collecting and wearing high heeled shoes, but I couldn't for the life of me, figure out why.

I am so over being told that.... The last psych I went to admitted that he didn't know much about aspergers, but was able to tell me that I didn't have it.

Then recently my doctor told me I didn't have it, but because I've learned how to converse with people, I can hide it. But not all the time, and it is such a struggle.



I might print the article off and take it with me to the next appointment.

Thank you SO MUCH for these links! I copied and pasted the 3rd one, and now I´m going to read it in my own time. What I read so far was awesome! I always thought that I probably have something like residual Asperger´s Syndrome, and this paper does much to explain- well, everything about me, really.

What I also liked is that the article recognized, and considered valid, a "self diagnosed-peer confirmed" label.