Ganondox inspired my own topic on female male ratio in ASD

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Hello everyone,

Ganondox recently posted his own analyses of the extreme male brain theory (From Simon Baron-Cohen)
I want to post my own theory why the extreme male brain theory of Baron-Cohen is incorrect.

First I want to make clear that males are in fact more likely to be autistic, however, this does not have to mean that males are more masculine.

Why do I say males are more likely to be autistic:
Preposition 1: females are less likely diagnosed with autism/asperger
(correct preposition) (some figures are for asperger: 1 out of 6 are females diagnosed with asperger syndrome and for all autism spectrum disorders it's 1 out of 4, so 6 males for 1 female and 1 female for 4 males!)
Preposition 2: people are diagnosed because they have trouble in daily life, and that(s why they are called having social problems and thus having a diagnosis of autism/asperger
(correct preposition)
(The primary goal of diagnosis is to help people who have difficulties in life, just like medicine try to to cure the human body, psychology try to help the human psychological problems)
Conclusion: Females are less likely to have trouble in daily life (social problems, autism problems) hence they are diagnosed with asperger/autism less often
(most likely conclusion, more likely thn to argue that females are less diagnosed because of other factors...)



Someone is called having "autism" or "asperger syndrome" when he/she has "autism" or "asperger" characteristics.
This means, that by definition, someone could have autism or asperger characterstics at one time of his live or her life, and not at the other time of his or her life, characteristics change in your life path.

Scientific research has shown that females are less likely to have this autistic characteristics, and this explains why females are less diagnosed with autism. You could argue that females (who have autistic characteristics) are less likely to be diagnosed with autism because of other factors, but this is a hypothesis which should be tested, and as far as I know, this has never been proven.

It's much more likely to argue that males are more often autistic, which I think is true, and this could also explain why all isolated autistic traits (for example more inntrested in information transfer/geeky setting opposed to social settings and acting socia, or monotonic voice etc.)

Last edited by paxfilosoof on 08 Nov 2014, 9:04 am, edited 4 times in total.

So, how could we explain "autism" and "asperger syndrome"?

Let me first try to make clear what we call "autism" or "asperger syndrome"

If you ask people what "autism" or "asperger syndrome" is, most people you would ask will answer this:
Isn't it something to do with social contact?

Most people don't even know what autism truly is.

The scientic community is trying to identify what autism is, and at the moment here are some asperger or autistic traits seen more often in populations who are disgnosed with autism.

NOT all people with autism have all this traits. each person has some autistic traits and soem "normal" traits.

1. gluten/casein sensitivity
2. narrow interests (geeky interest opposed of social contact)
3. Impeccable grammer and spelling
4. trouble with nonverbal communication (nonverbal communication is an old language which was veery useful in the past)
5. Very literal and pedantic (= has trouble in understanding nonverbal communication/metaphores but better in udnerstanding advanced verbal communication like scientific articles and very literal and objective information)
6. Trouble making freinds, autistic/asperger individuals have less friends, but that is not per se negative, if you have less friends, you have more lcose friends.
7. On average, people with autism seems to have sensory differences like feeling air pressure more, or enjoying cold temperatures.
8. People with autism/asperger are less interested in social chit chat, and more interested in information transfer.
Few peopel with autism/asperger are social peopel who love to drink alcohol and going out and make lots of poorly unknown "friends"
9. People with autism are more bullied in youth, which is be proven by many scientific papers.
10. people with autism have more depression/schizophrenia because of their differences. So, this "conditions" are more often in people with autism because they are bullied and people don't understand autism.
11. People with autism have sometimes monotone voice.
12. People wirth autism/asperger are very brutally honest, and very pedantic about their interests
13. People with autism/asperger are more often taken advantage of.

Much of this traits can change during your lifetime. When I was a kid I was very literal, now I can understand metaphores more easily for example.

Women on the spectrum may under reported read science article
gender bias in studies
http://www.scienceworldreport.com/artic ... tudies.htm

haha, read what I post!

And if you've read what I had typed before, you would known that it's much more likely to say that autism is less common in females then find some 'magical' factor which describe why females who are autistic have less chance for a diagnosis. For example in this article: "women are undetected", of course they're, they are less autistic!! !! !

Their is no evidence that autism is different in females, autism = autistic traits, and you have autistic traits or you don't !

Many people say that autisdm is different in females, but it isn't, autism = having trouble with social relationships, having obsessive/narrow interests, etc...

Autism has nothing to do with gender, it's completely different. But it just happen to be that males are more often autistic!

In fact, I predict the ratio for asperger syndrome is even more then today measures. because many males with asperger are diagnosed with ADHD.

Actually there is, there have been some studies where it's been found that females with autism display different trends than males with autism For example, with males, those with more severe autism appear to make less eye contact. However, the opposite trend was actually found for autistic girls.

If the trends change, this doesn't mean that the characteristics of autism change between females and males, you fool!
Autism is still the same: for example trouble with nonverbal communication (an autistic characteristic) (whether or not your female/male, both females and males who are autistic have trouble with nonverbal communiation, otherwise the females who don't, simply don't have this autistic trait!! !! !)

You are confusing gender with autism. Autism is independent of gender (because females and males can have autism), but gender can influence autism. For example: 10 females can have more problems with nonverbal communication and less problems with narrow interest compared to 10 males with autism. This doesn't mean that autism is different, only that in this 20 humans the autistic characteristics are different between the sexes.

Last edited by paxfilosoof on 10 Nov 2014, 10:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

Did it ever occur to you that the same behavior is often interpreted differently in a woman than in a man?

I bet every woman is well aware of this.

It shouldn't.

For example:

physical laziness is something some people have and other don't have.

It's independent of your gender. Some females are more industrious (physical) then some males. Some males are more indsutrious then some females. The same behavior shouldn't interpret differently.

The fool is the one who dismisses any information which goes against his believes. Yes, such a trend does illustrate different traits as it alludes that there is some sort of different which results in more eye contact being made despite the autism. Autism isn't simply autistic traits, it's a complex condition, the traits are subservient to the syndrome, not visa versa. You can arbitrary define autism so those boys have it but the girls don't based on said trait, but that makes no sense as then what would the girl have, autismB which has the same impairments and cause as autism, but is arbitrarily a different condition? No, that's not how it works, it's clear you don't understand what the classification even is.

"You are confusing gender with autism. Autism is independent of gender (because females and males can have autism), but gender can influence autism. For example: 10 females can have more problems with nonverbal communication and less problems with narrow interest compared to 10 males with autism. This doesn't mean that autism is different, only that in this 20 humans the autistic characteristics are different between the sexes." No I'm not, rather you don't understand how traits appearing differently affects diagnosis. Yes, it's the same autism, that's the point, but the fact the girls have less problems with narrow interest may result in less of them being diagnosed because that's what people focus on.



The fact is that even if it shouldn't, it's been well proven that it does (eg. take the same infant, and people will interpret it's behavior differently if you describe it a boy or a girl), so you are a fool for overlooking a well established factor.

"autism" isn't simply autistic traits, it's a "complex condition".

No it's not. Autism and neurotypical spectrum are overlapped, and each person has autism/neurotypical traits.

Your mistake is that you think autistic behaviors or autistic characteristics lead to a whole complex conditions, but this is not the case. Neurotypicals also have some autistic traits, and they are not "autistic".

The thing is, the classification today is completely wrong and stupid, because you could be diagnosed in different times of your life with different conditions.

the more "autism" traits you have, the higher chance for a diagnosis, however, it's entirely possible that you are autistic without having a diagnosis.

Autism is just a difference in brain wiring (and a couple of other anatomic differences), which result in different behavior and other phenotypes, which we call "autism traits".

Research has shown that these different behaviors/phenotypes are wide, for example, trouble with nonverbal communication (not specifically what behavior of nonverbal communication, but in general, trouble with nonverbal communication) is one example. Gluten sensitivity, is another.

Look at this table for example:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=dqhl3a&s=8#.U3mbWdKSyIw

You either have problems with nonverbal communication = autistic trait or you don't.

You either are bullied a lot (very often) = autism / or you are not = neurotypical trait.



The problem with todays classification is that there are hundreds of yet subtly different "conditions" yet, they share all
autism/neurtypical traits.

ADHD could be described by having aspergian/neurotypical traits.

The problem in our interaction is that, you are convinced that autism is a set isolated traits that are 100% correlated (which is a sign of autism complex disorder).

We are talking about different things, so I stop trying to convince you that autism is just a set of autistic traits (and an underlying biology).

I've met some aspie women and in my experience, many of the traits in asperger females are also present in men. However, they may not be recognised as much because there are differences in how boys and girls are socialised, so even if a girl displays the same traits, it could be overlooked. That's possibly the reason why ASD in girls could be under-diagnosed.

Well, indeed they are different socilised, and hence maybe they are less diagnosed.
But the socilization is also important in who you are. If you are socilized to be more social, and you're social, then you're less autistic.

So, the females who are more socilized to be less autistic, are less autistic.

No, I disagree. The cause of the problem with socialisation is in understanding the social interactions and communication. If you learn to imitate others behaviours then that only serve to mask the underlying causes and problems which are still there, so you're still autistic. I know that because I've learned to imitate other in social situations (even though I'm male) but you still lack the "social sense" that other people have innately, for us it's mostly scripted. You can't be socialised out of being autistic.

Okay, well, I don't agree. If I have more friends because I do more social things, I would call myself less autistic.
People change, and someone can have a diagnosis at one point of his life but not at a different point of his/her life.

So this explains why their are many programs to teach you to be more "social".

However, the stupid things of this programs is that they do'nt accept autism, they don't accept the fact that some people are less interested in social contact.

Having scripts available for specific social situations is not the same thing as being more social. Also, both male and female aspies are less interested in social contact than NT's, the only thing that having social scripts do is make the autism less noticeable when you are in a social setting.