why so few female aspies detected?

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So how do you tell if she's interested?

The scientific data being derived from essentially two populations - one that is typically diagnosed and one that is typically underdiagnosed. It seems like the data would reinforce itself a bit.

I learned about eye contact at the age of 13, and it was only because my mother was reproaching my 14-year-old brother for not looking people in the eye when he shook their hands. Back then I just assumed girls weren't supposed to look anyone in the eye, though, so I didn't really make any eye contact with anyone until I went to college.

Yep. Unable to socialise+good academically+not disruptive = gifted + shy, apparently. If you're not causing problems for other people, noone thinks that you could possibly have a problem.



I learned from 2 main things: one of my friends yelled at me about it when I was 10, and I read a book where a character thought that another character was trustworthy because he looked her in the eye when they spoke.
Before then I hadn't realised that it was important, and I was amazed that you could gain people's trust simply by looking at their eyes; I'd always assumed that building trust was a long process based on watching a person's behaviour.

Let's say someone is a bit shy but otherwise is considered to be gifted and not causing problems for anyone. Is that enough to be diagnosed?

there are no male members of my family who have autism, whereas I have aspegers and my youngest sister has ADHD.
I did read somewhere autism is more common in males, and every other person I have met with autism has been male.

I don't think you understand the genetics involved...

X-linked recessive traits are expressed in all heterogametics, but are only expressed in those homogametics that are homozygous for the recessive allele. For example, an X-linked recessive allele in humans causes hemophilia. Hemophilia is much more common in males than females because males are hemizygous - they only have one copy of the gene in question - and therefore express the trait when they inherit one mutant allele. In contrast, a female must inherit two mutant alleles, a less frequent event since the mutant allele is rare in the population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_linkage

I learned to be conscious of making eye contact when I was about 6 or 7 because someone told me it's not polite to ignore people. That in order to be polite, it's important to make eye contact with others. I can vividly remember when I started forcing myself to make eye contact with teachers as I met them in the halls at school.

As for learning how to read eyes, that's different. Eye contact is nothing more than meeting someone's gaze and holding it for a few moments. Reading someone's eyes is more about studying the way that they are holding them and the way the rest of their face is posed in order to understand what emotion they are exhibiting. I do not do this very well. In order for me to read someone, I have to see their posture, watch their movements and gestures, and usually hear the words they are saying and/or the tone they are using.

I first started making eye contact in my late teens. I kept reading that it was important- in terms of job search, dating, etc.- to "act confident", and to "look people in the eye". As these two things were always written together, I assumed that eye contact was important only in proving to people that I was "confident"....it never occurred to me that there may be any other reason at all for making eye contact! But as "showing my confidence" seemed so important in our society, I worked on it.

I didn´t learn that eye contact was important for other reasons, like reading expressions or showing romantic interest, until I was about 30. (So, yeah, females can learn these things just as late as male Aspies! I don´t think things are really any easier for girls and women, just different). I did kind of see that women in movies flirted with their eyes, but I thought that was just the movies....exaggerated.....so I never applied that to my life, I would have felt contrived. But I guess it was easier for me to look at faces in movies, and therefore didn´t notice how people act in real life....or maybe it´s just more subtle in life, so I don´t pick it up as well? I realize I went through most of my dating life- (not that I ever went on many dates, ha ha)- not understanding, at all, the importance of body language and facial signals. I was only listening to words.

And my theory as to why fewer girls get diagnosed: Hans Asperger only studied boys, so what we know about AS comes mostly from the 34 boys he studied. Although I do believe the internal traits of AS are essentially the same in both men and women, people who are non-autistic can get stuck in stereotypes. So therefore, if they see a certain pattern in several boys- like, for instance, they are "aggressive", or they "like numbers"- people tend to think of these stereotypes as being important, and maybe lose the big picture. If a girl has the core AS traits but presents a little differently- for instance, being quiet and passive, or interested in emotions and psychology- then people who think of AS as a series of personality stereotypes may not pick up on her AS. I read recently that some of the experts on AS admitted that when it comes to girls, they "don´t really know what they´re looking for". Based on what I´ve read, it sounds like it´s almost a given that girls are under diagnosed....although, there may be a genetic factor as well, I don´t know.

While it can help provide a reason that some Aspies are overlooked, it is definitely not enough to base a diagnosis on for either gender.

boys are said to be easier to diagnose, for anything not just AS. plus the gene is meant to be carried from the father's side of the family more often than the mothers, don't know if that makes any difference though.

For me personally, I can add that I was attuned to being a "good" person, so if I heard that there was something I should to in order to be more polite or engage people better, I figured out a way to incorporate it into my habits. When I talk to people about the fact that I could be Aspie, they generally tend to bring up the fact that I speak in front of crowds, and I am charming in small groups. What they don't see is the internal anxiety that doing these things causes because I've learned to mask it all. They also do not realize that I do tend to limit the amount of time that I spend doing these things so that the fact that I am completely faking it does not come out.

I think it's mostly due to the fact that autism and Asperger's are thought of as only affecting males, so doctors don't really look for it in females as much. Also, girls are better at hiding their symptoms and difficulties, and some of the Aspie traits, such as shyness, are seen as more acceptable in girls.

Here's an article on the topic: Girls with Asperger's Syndrome

having should have said: "carrying"

sorry for that.


and






if it were bound to the X-chromosome... men could never pass autism to their sons, because men don't give a X-chromosome to their sons..........

I think one possible genetic cause that accounts for 15% of (known) cases is linked to the X chromosome. Since autism likely has numerous genetic and possibly epigenetic etiologies, it's all too easy to pick one under the assumption that it is the only cause (not that I think ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo was doing that).