Rare in Women? REALLY?

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Where I am now, with the people I have been exposed to, I think 2 are HFA, and 2, including me, are AS. NONE of us, to the best of my knowledge, are diagnosed. One WAS declared "handicapped" by our boss after having gone to a group of psychiatrists specializing in, supposedly, adult ADD. Our boss was secretive about what the handicap was, so I suspect autism is more likely than ADD.

Anyway, one of the people, I pegged as HFA, it turns out has a daughter! Another coworker, that I think is NT, has ANOTHER daughter! So what is unusual about their daughters? *I* think they subtly show signs of autism. One has the typical logical/math pattern that some aspies have. She is ALSO musical! I don't know enough about the other one, but she IS shy, as is the other, and a bit of a hermit. Her father also says she rocks when she is really concentrating. Anyway, BOTH of those daughters have been DIAGNOSED AS!

So I know of 2 females that are diagnosed, and 4 males that aren't. Granted, it is a small sample. Frankly, I dealt with the men more. HERE is why I think what I do:

MEN(1 might be diagnosed)

1. One guy is VERY smart, seems arrogant, dumb about some things(but knows it), not social, and stims when he is bored or thinking about something a lot.
2. I am the same as #1
3. Is HEAVILY into detail, sways when he is thinking, pretty smart, dumb about some things(but knows it), social to a degree(apparently it is an act), is a perfectionist that can be lost in the pursuit.(BTW I had that last item in the past!) He is also alergic to shellfish, made a statement about autistics being allergic to wheat(Interesting how that was the first observation he made about a boys mother mentioning he was alergic to wheat)
4. He is allergic to wheat, VERY talkative, has an odd expression, and is interested in getting into things. He can pick them up well. It turns out his daughter is AS.

Girls(BOTH diagnosed AS)

1. Shy, Quiet, Aloof, Stims, introverted
2. Same as one but also Musical, Logical, Mathematical.

BTW About the boy that was alergic to wheat, he didn't seem autistic. I only saw his interaction with his mother for a few minutes, but he was looking at new items for a snack.

it's within the realm of possibility. Wouldn't be surprised if we cluster in certain occupations. Now if they were gym teachers, motivational speakers, etc., I'd be surprised. Scientists, computer techs, etc., might be more likely.

I've never met an admitted aspie, so I don't know. I have some 'suspicions' of some people, but it's kinda hard to ask someone that without being incredibly rude.

still, we're supposedly .5%, so out of 300 million, that could still add up...

There's more to interaction than talk...you can often detect the weird sort of harmony NTs have when they talk to each other, like they're playing the same piece of music...

anecdotal evidence is always on scientifically shaky ground

Merle

Retrospectively, I can only ever recall one person who seemed to behave similar to me in many ways, and that was another male in high school. There was around 300 or so students in my grade, so one or two out of that number fits in with the lowest ASD prevalence rates. I noticed that most of the females were shy in high school, and I see the differences between social fear/shyness compared to a social impairment by remembering how they behaved, i.e., young adult females telling you through friends that they liked you, or females who solely relied on body language to tell you the same. These two things are related to fear/shyness, rather than a social impairment as is defined in Autism/Asperger's. Nearly all of the males were socially embarrassing, actually; I notice differences between immaturity and a social impairment too (not to say that people with an ASD can't be socially and emotionally immature, far from it, but how they manifest is quite easy to pickup).

Once I went to this vocational college with the goal of becoming a travel agent in mind.
Par usual, one of the administrators tried her best to talk me out of attending the school before I enrolled. I have to go through this sort of thing so much it's ridiculous and I seriously wish all the ignorant presumptuous fools that do this sort of thing would cut it out. Quit assuming someone is too dumb when you don't know anything about them!
Anyway, one of my obsessions, I don't know if you can tell, are acronyms and there were soooo many acronyms to learn in this class because we had to fill out endless airline tickets using the acronyms of various airports in the US and around the world. At the time I really enjoyed that, it was my favorite part of the class and did I shock them all, but that's usual for me and I am used to that!
Anyway, to the point, we all had this one assignment that involved reading a paper we wrote in front of the class while being videod. I never realized how much I swayed when I talked until I saw the video of me! It was just soooo weird and I about had a nervous breakdown watching it because I had no idea I was such a swayer!

A 3 pages article on the subject from the Telegraph:
page 1:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main. ... autism.xml

am dont believe it either,that its rare in females.

am know of more female autie and aspie residents in the learning disability services here,than male [LD services cater for LDers/DDers with high/accute needs].it also goes against the 'males have it more severe than females' stereotype,if males are a lot more different in severity then they would be in this service as it's the main support available for non HFs,they wouldn't be able to get the same support at home because they wouldn't get the funding so it cant be because they are all at home with family.

I'm pretty sure it's pretty common. I don't personally know any other aspie females, but given how good I am at covering it up and have been since I was about 15, I'd say you'd need to look at a younger age bracket to pick it up in a more obvious way, and that women are good at hiding it. And that it exhibits differently and people are too preoccupied with this 'severe male brain' BS that they ignore the women altogther.

Now, I wonder...if women are so good at hiding it...is it like not having it? I don't think I am great at faking it in real life.

I still think that,if women and men were held to the SAME standard, there would be equal numbers of both. It would be nice if people could somehow view EVERYONE as male, and determine whether they were autistic. Females are given so much tolerance that some things are just IGNORED!

BTW please don't take that as an insult, it isn't one. It isn't even any sexist comment.