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Lumi
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28 Dec 2013, 11:31 pm

Studies point to girls possibly being more protected from autism so when they are autistic, they have stronger deficits...
Someone recently posted that girls are actually more likely to be severely disabled by autism. Not really asking in comparison to boys.

Are you (or others you know) more disabled by autism (especially girls)?


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28 Dec 2013, 11:37 pm

I think this relates more to severe autism than high functioning. I certainly wouldn't say I'm more disabled than males with HFA. I'm a good mimic of other people, sometimes I go a bit too far with my mimicry and use it when it's no longer appropriate to do so. I suppress a lot of my anger so have less outbursts but when I break there's been a lot of build-up to it, so in a way it may be more intense than those who have a meltdown after just one stressor.

It could have to do with HFA/AS often being overlooked in girls than boys because of bias and how the symptoms present themselves that the most females to be diagnosed have severe autism. Just my opinion.


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28 Dec 2013, 11:55 pm

I think you are responding to my comment? It's got to do with the statistical evidence. 1/87 boys are ASD vs 1/147 girls. However (and I dont know the numbers for this) of the girls who have autism, a higher percentage are classified as autistic and fewer HFA/aspie than boys. Comparing two HFA boy/girl would not be noticeably different.


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29 Dec 2013, 12:06 am

I think it's more like, if you're a girl, you have to be obviously autistic before doctors think "autism". If you're a boy, they think of it much sooner.


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29 Dec 2013, 12:11 am

I recall reading that autistic girls are twice as likely to have ID then boys, makes sense if only the more severely impaired girls are being identified.



Lumi
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29 Dec 2013, 12:22 am

buffinator wrote:
I think you are responding to my comment?

yes

Ratios get closer in more obvious autism too. Something like 1/3 or maybe even 1/1


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btbnnyr
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29 Dec 2013, 12:44 am

Girls on autism spectrum are more severely disabled as a group, because girls with syndromic forms of autism with intellectual disability are near 1:1 with similar boys, while HFA girls are much more rare than HFA boys. Within HFA, girls are not more disabled than boys, most studies that I have seen in this group indicate similar disability or greater in certain areas in boys.


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29 Dec 2013, 12:59 am

btbnnyr wrote:
Girls on autism spectrum are more severely disabled as a group, because girls with syndromic forms of autism with intellectual disability are near 1:1 with similar boys, while HFA girls are much more rare than HFA boys. Within HFA, girls are not more disabled than boys, most studies that I have seen in this group indicate similar disability or greater in certain areas in boys.


It may only be greater in boys because of how the symptoms manifest in girls.

My extroverted bipolar sister thinks I'm doing better than her because I don't scream the house down like she does, but I'm still feeling as much pain as her internally.

To people more visible symptoms seem worse but people can try to suppress symptoms and have autism just as bad, or be fairly passive and still be very disabled by autism.


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29 Dec 2013, 9:56 am

I think it's honestly as common (or almost as common), and about equally disabling (if perhaps more painful, as girls are more likely to internalize stuff).

Asperger's/HFA isn't diagnosed in girls as often because the criteria/symptomology is still based on boys. Girls show different symptoms, that people haven't been trained to look for, that may be less "obvious" because girls tend to be "less outgoing."

I know it never would have occurred to anyone to worry about me-- even though, at 3, I played alone, would not ask for help from anyone but immediate caregivers, and tended to sniff the children in line in front of me. I was quiet, shy, obedient, and clearly good in the books-- these were desirable traits in a girl.

By the time my deficits were A Problem-- around third or fourth grade, when a 30% gap becomes massive and bullying begins in earnest-- I had learned to hide a lot of things. The only obvious symptoms I had, by then, were thumb sucking and quick tears. I don't know about now, but in 1980-something, no one would have dared raise (or consider) the possibility of a highly stigmatized mental issue on the grounds of thumb-sucking and tears.


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29 Dec 2013, 1:02 pm

I think because they can be under diagnosed or not diagnosed at until later they can reflect some secondary conditions more.



btbnnyr
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29 Dec 2013, 1:47 pm

According to most observed behavior and self-report studies, hfa females are not generally more disabled than hfa males, but there are some differences in the areas measured, e.g. males having more rrb, e.g. females having more sensory issues.


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29 Dec 2013, 1:58 pm

Yeah, it depends on the study and the traits when it comes to "severity"; the studies I've read have said it doesn't matter ID or not, or severity of other traits, females have more sensory issues than males on average. There's some other traits there are differences in, but I don't remember them, because sensory issues in autism is the one I research most.

However, I have seen something that said on average including HFA that females were more severe. I trust that btbnnyr has read others that have said the opposite. It comes down to there's lots of data and it comes down to what you look at I think.

Me, I have the severe sensory issues, and I think that general "severity" isn't really a thing to compare easily. But sensory issues, that I know I have.



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29 Dec 2013, 4:29 pm

Sensory is severe-moderate for me. I completely agree with the part of sensory being more noted for girls.


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29 Dec 2013, 7:37 pm

according to my I.Q tests, my therapist was surpised on how well i adapted, i learned mostly from my sister and television. i think im so well adapted because i wanted to fit in and understand the world around me, i remember making charts about my sisters behaviour and memorizing jokes my dad liked on TV.


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29 Dec 2013, 9:44 pm

I'm not female, however, I wanted to say that:


There's a lot of stereotypes about what autism "is" and what it "is not". A lot of them are flawed, and research in this area is far from complete (Especially in comparison to how little we know about autism in general). Because of this (And the DSM-5 is probably not going to help this one tiny bit), I would venture a guess that the fact that women appear to be diagnosed less frequently and only in cases that are more severe has nothing to do with genetics, and everything to do with psychiatrist's badly understanding the condition and how it manifests in women who are on the "mild" end of the spectrum.



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29 Dec 2013, 9:53 pm

ZombieBrideXD wrote:
according to my I.Q tests, my therapist was surpised on how well i adapted, i learned mostly from my sister and television. i think im so well adapted because i wanted to fit in and understand the world around me, i remember making charts about my sisters behaviour and memorizing jokes my dad liked on TV.


TV actually f****d me over as I learned primarily from cartoons... First time driving: swing the wheel left and right rapidly? gestures? why not imitate Donald duck? for some reason I didn't passively learn from representations of people but cartoons stuck.


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