Is it harder to detect autism in girls

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Sarah I have also always directed the agression, pain, sadness at myself and never understood until I was diagnosed why I would at times cry uncontrollably, even though I am usually quite a strong person. Well now anyway, was very shy as a child...

Its like I have always felt the need to hid my pain and deal with it alone, I still do to an extent. Maybe find it hard to show my weaknesses or do not see the point, and how do you explain to others when can not quite understand yourself.

I was a lot more uncontrollable when I use to drink, can pretty much contain my emotions now, but maybe thats due to the fact I am beginning to understand who I really am and not so frustrated with the world.

This is an older article, but found really interesting:
The Girl with a Boy's Brain
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/ind ... 002&page=1
I was always a real tom boy and could relate better to men than woman, once got over my shyness that is.. tend to prefer children and animals to reality at times..

I can identify with the posts about being very, very well behaved and having an absolute obsession with horses. I could (and still can) name every single breed of horse, tell you every characteristic, spend hour after hour after hour compiling lists about them. But people thought "how sweet", not "how weird is that". I was no trouble to anyone, so why seek a medical opinion? All the horror of coping went on in my head - the anxiety, the depression. It wasn't something anyone else ever had to worry about, and when I did finally go to the doctors because I'd run out of ways to cope with being 'me' in this world, the only thing they said was "just pull yourself together".
I think we'd get more help if we were violent and aggressive, sadly (but there's no way I would be - that would be breaking rules, and that's not good).

It's interesting that many of you are talking about going undetected because of being well-behaved. I had a somewhat different experience. It's true that I was just a shy, quiet, and compliant girl most of the time, but I definitely had moments in school where I was obviously "making a scene" with my meltdowns, and occasionally this included conflict with another kid. This was especially true around age 10. I wasn't usually violent, but rather just cried a lot and couldn't control myself very well during these episodes. The school eventually had my parents take me to a counselor, but they didn't suggest I be officially tested or anything. Maybe that's because this was ten years ago, or because they were incompetent, but I think a lot of people just wrote me off as "emotionally unstable" and "hypersensitive." They didn't think Asperger's or autism or even ADD, possibly because my traits in other areas were relatively masked. I think that's because people expect girls to be "oversensitive" to some degree, so a lot of people (including my guidance counselor at this difficult period in my life) just didn't take the problem seriously. I wasn't autistic, I was just a spoiled girl in their eyes.

Funny how you girl's, say things like that my tutor described me as , quiet, shy, keeps to himself, polite.

Maybe it's not hard to detect, just people are either blind or not qualified enough to detect problem's with people, like people with bad behaviour normally got expelled, or if people did show signs of problem's no one bothered finding out if they was anything wrong, worse part in our school was the fact the teachers were too busy sitting in the teachers lounge drinking they coffee than monitoring what was going on at play time, hell the amount of running around I did in my first year of secondary school from bullies was a joke, then I just said what the hell this isn’t going to stop unless I do something about it. So I ended up going after them & only because they came out worse than me, I got the blame that I started it, because they friends stuck up for them.. That video reminds me of me trying to interact, I just ended up normally sitting on the edge of the field reading something. & English football, people got really angry when I stole the ball from them, because of the speed I had but really bad at kicking the ball in the right direction. Always was picked last.. I asked for help 3 years ago, diagnosed myself with shyness & social anxiety.

So really is it harder to detect or are people just not trained to detect it... I know self harm with girls is at a high rate.

Ill add a link as well *

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/5295024.stm

When I was young and at school...teachers often noticed that I was quiet and withdrawn. Since I was doing fine academically though, they didn't think anything of it and just thought that I was a regular "quiet kid".
My mother noticed a few things "off" with me when I was younger...but thought that they were just "girly quirks"...like hand flapping and not wanting to eat "messy food" etc. It wasn't until my adolescence that my mother started to suspect something wasn't right with me as I still couldn't make friends, was still quiet and "odd" compared to my peers.

I remember a boy at my primary school who had AS and i knew this because he told me, but I didn't know what it was at the time anyway. He was disruptive, loud and broke many rules. I remember him crying in class once because he said that he couldn't do his handwriting because it was "too hard" [his words...not mine]. He was well noticed. Where as I just stayed out of peoples attention.

I think I slipped under the radar. They basically slapped me with an ADD label, gave me a bottle of antidepressants/anxiety pills and dropped kicked me out the door. Not that I was even really old enough to understand it all then, but in my 20's now and looking back over all the little symptoms that were basically thought to be totally irrelevent then, it's like "Huh, I think I might have AS" I haven't been "officially" diagnosed yet but everything points to it. I plan on setting up an appointment with my shrink soon, they'll probably want to put me on pills again. Like, "Oh, you poor thing, how will you ever function in the world?" Quite well thank you, as long as I'm not zombified on zoloft. They had me on xanax and zoloft and some other stuff. Those pills made everything so much worse, I was already having trouble feeling emotions and then they take away my anxiety and depression. Yes those emotions are no fun but it's better than feeling absolutely NOTHING.

Amarathat seems to happen to so many children, the parents try and control the condition rather than understand the child.

my story is much like yours. of course, they checked me longer, it was 20 years earlier, and my mother never got the pills because she knew I wasn't hyper.

That is true and I've been very angry with them in the past for the way they tried to handle it, and while I'm still upset I had to go through it I've come to realize they were just doing the best they could. I was admittedly a difficult child who would "cry for hours for no apparent reason" (I'm actually thinking those were meltdowns, I don't remember them too well so I don't know what triggered it). And they did do what they could to help me, like getting me a therapist to help me with my motor skills- it really did help too, I have no problems with it anymore. They also got me a tutor that worked with me on my math (still have trouble with that) and eye contact (better but not perfect especially when I'm speaking to people I don't know).

So there's a few symptoms listed up there that have caused me to wonder-
motor skill problems
eye contact difficulties
very likely meltdowns

I think nobody really bothered to join these puzzle pieces together, they were all seen as seperate problems rather than a greater whole.

There are other symptoms that I have of course. Like my tactile sensitivity or "sensory defensiveness" as they termed it. I also find it difficult to sleep without a heavy blanket- I find it very calming so I can sleep (that whole pressure thing). And the list goes on...

I was noticed when i younger because social services thought i was deaf.When i started talking i spoke in monotone and spent some time in special needs.When i got to age 7 i was passed on to a new family and discribed as having an autistic personality.Because i was in care with my brother and he had really bad disruptive problems they mostly missed me.For a few years everything was about cats,people where of no intrest though i made 1 friend who could have everything be about cats.I lost that friend because we got in trouble for spraying something to mark cat territorys and the teacher told the girls parents i was weird and strange and not to let her play with me anymore.I think i mainly just got seen as shy,i wonder if it could also be alot to do with misconseptions of the autism spectrum that AS is missed.Im not sure if teachers got told or anything but my brother was the main focus anyway because he was having angry outbursts that they even thought may be fits.

Well, I got all these disciplinary trials, teachers didn't want me in the class room saying they were not able to teach me and it was just one big mess.

Nobody ever took the idea into consideration that I might not behave like this because I wanted to, but because I have some disorder. Nobody ever suspected AD(H)D, AS, autism, any disorder at all - I was just the kid who was cracked, emotionally disturbed, insecure and by all this a danger to my surroundings/classmates/all other people.

I had to be locked up, thrown out of school and one teacher said that the best thing to do was beat me to death.

Funny thing is, in all the classes I was, there were people - boys - with ADHD, disabilities and one I guess had AS. But with me it was only ever assumed that I acted on purpose and tried to manipulate and control my environment.

Only in elementary school I was perceived as very quiet, very shy, very insecure, but also already as slightly manipulating and emotionally disturbed. I was told to stop doing this, stop doing that all the time, like speaking to nobody, freaking out over a change in the daily routine, hurting other children and not getting it. I should stop acting like that they said and finally start to behave good and normal.

NOBODY ever figured that I might have an disorder. Guess because I'm a girl? I can't believe I went to school with boys who had ADHD, AS and other things but that I was never considered although they regularly told me to stop acting like the boys J or T for example.

I think it depends on the girl. My mum knew that I was odd from a very young age (she worked as a teacher for Special Needs kids before though), plus I didn't until I was in primary school. Add on top of that that I was /very/ violent at times (I once went and knocked over all the tables in the lunch room, literally throwing them at the boy who'd pissed me off, and I threw the teachers desk at the teacher once as well), I really wasn't that hard to diagnose at all. Hell, I was in a class of fifteen, eight or nine of which were special needs and I was the only one with a diagnosis.

Still, it seems obvious that I'm the exception rather than the rule. When I joined my secondary school (which is an all girls school) I was the first person on the autistic spectrum to join, and as far as I know that continued for at least three or four years.

Same with me. I'd call negligence on the part of my high school teachers. Just FYI and all, I am male.

Seriously, I have freaking autism and Asperger's (two different diagnostic criteria); both being two of the most severe developmental disabilities in children. It took a psychiatric hospital stay, numerous; countless visits to professionals, and diagnoses from the abyss of the DSM until someone finally told me that he thinks I have AS, after I brought it up with him at the grandfatherly age of 25 (thanks for telling me dude).

Either everything fell perfectly for me, or I guess some of us are just too high-functioning or look too "normal".

I was never quiet or shy at school.

When I had social difficulties I was misread as being malicious because other girls who said the things I said actually were being malicious. It didnt occur to anyone that I wasnt malicious, I just didnt know enough about peoples feelings not to hurt them.

So yes I didnt get picked up as a possible AS person, but not because of being shy and unnoticed. I was always noticed too much.

Sometimes I would find myself being sent to the Principal and I was always very confused about what I did wrong.

Also, it was the 1980s during my childhood. Autism was barely heard of then!

I've heard the same thing about girls being more developed in social skills in the brain. For me, as a child, I had a very hard time getting words out. It was so frustrating. My school and parents tried to help me. No one brought up aspergers. I had very few friends. The friends I did have were just really nice ppl. I never could identify with my peers. I notice more and more parents, get concerned with their children not having friends. Mine never really did. I was never bullied but kept to myself. So, it may also be a cultural thing in the way girls socialize. I think that it's changing more now. I was just accepted as shy who had speacial interests. In fact, my mom used to just call me speacial.

oh gee...lets see...I was a problem child...there were no lables....I didn't hear about ADD till I was in high school....I did not hear about aspergers until years later.....There was some kind of whispering of autism someplace as I recall, because I remember my mom saying "you are not autistic, you are artistic" "Autistic people can't speak."
For some reason that word stuck in my head...my parents seemd to be in complete denial that there was anything wrong with me. They blamed the system....Meanwhile, I did horribly in school...academicly and socially....But I had really high standardised test scores..the highest in the the school once...My parents were always having conference withteachers and principals about me, but I was never in on them. I was never told what was said...oh..except for....that I did not stay on task...had trouble interracting with others..and had severe organizational troubles....

Teachers and students disliked me. Somehow I managed to be quiet and disruptive at the same time. I was really sensitive to my environment...was always always always going to the nurses office. I remember that I did not know how to dress, and would frequently dress asexually....or wear my shirts backwards....I always had a horrible haircut...Every classroom has the stereotype of ""that"" kid, and i was her....from 1st till 5th grade.