I do believe girls have one true "protective" factor in the hypothesis that a lot of the genetic factors that influence autism are (or are believed to be) X-linked recessive traits.
I know it has to be far more complex than Mendel's pea plants and those stupid brown-eye/blue-eye charts in our middle school science books, but...
...thus a male child is more likely to inherit autism solely from his mother's side of the family, while a female child is more likely to have to inherit it from both sides (as I suspect very strongly I did).
I want, however, to sneer viciously at phrases like "the family itself must be so chock-a-block with risk factors..." I think they were being a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it smacks of eugenics and it makes me sick.
Definitely identify with the covering and et cetera. That was certainly me-- and I generally picked dangerous people to imitate. I was good at it.
Related thought: Read a study here somewhere demonstrating that, although there are approximately 4 autistic males to every autistic female, depression and anxiety are nearly 4 times more common among autistic females when compared to autistic males.
I wonder if those things are related-- that some of the manifestations (or more likely some of the coping strategies) seen in females, coupled with the drastically lower rate of diagnosis (I'm sure Her Kindergarten Majesty wouldn't have a problem with a female child displaying my son's behavior) and the downright vicious nature of female culture simply create a ripe breeding ground for pain, misery, and fear.
_________________
"Alas, our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless, as wind in dry grass, or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar." --TS Eliot, "The Hollow Men"
28 Mar 2013, 7:37 pm
