Autism in females

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are currently more commonly diagnosed in males, with a ratio of about 1 female for every 4 males diagnosed.[1] Currently, one in every 189 females is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).[2] There is some evidence that females may also receive diagnoses somewhat later than males, however thus far results have been contradictory.[3] Researchers have also debated whether a diagnostic gender bias has played a role in females being under diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.[4] Researchers have speculated a gender bias in the parental reporting due to the expectations and socialization of gender roles in our society[5] As of yet, there have been no studies specifically addressing the occurrence of autism in intersex individuals, and this is an area that requires further research. Several theories exist to explain the male-female sex based discrepancy, such as a genetic protective effect,[6][7][8] the Extreme Male Brain Theory,[9][10] and phenotypic differences in the female presentation.[8][11][12][13]

Summary

Differences in presentation of autistic traits are widely supported within the autistic community, and gaining support in the professional field. Hans Asperger was one of the first people to study autism, yet all of this students were male. Since biological differences exist between males and females, it follows that the presentation of autism would differ as well. Recent studies suggest this to be true, with evidence of increased incidence of social anxiety,[12] anorexia nervosa,[14][15] and self-harm.[16] Autistic females, and clinicians who work closely with them, have compiled many resources highlighting the traits that are often associated with autism as it presents in females.[17][18] Some of the main differences noticed in females compared to their male counterparts include increased social mimicry abilities, more expressive gestures, special interests perceived as "more practical", and more prevalent interest in animals.[17] Several other characteristics of autism that have been noted specifically in females include: uneven learning profiles, difficulty in completing higher education, struggles with organization, difficulties communicating feelings or asking for help, anxiety, depression, gender dysphoria, high levels of empathy, sensitivity to suffering, and individuals are often highly intuitive. For a more complete list of characteristics please refer to some of the lists available online, such as those by Tania Marshall or Rudy Simone.

With these differences in presentation combined with differential coping ability, often enabling females to blend in with peers through mimicry in spite of lack of understanding, ASD frequently goes unrecognized in females. This can lead to a lack of support and understanding from family, friends, teachers, and themselves which can damage self-esteem and impede the development of useful coping strategies. There are more females seeking diagnosis after the diagnosis of a close family member or friend where they learn more about the condition and how it has effected them throughout their lives. Many report feelings of relief, forgiveness and understanding within themselves upon receiving a diagnosis, as it helps to explain everything they struggled with since childhood.[19][20]

While there are many suggested practices produced by the clinical research community, it is highly advocated within the autistic community to learn more about autism through interactions with actual autistic individuals. You can learn a lot from people sharing their stories on how autism has affected their lives, from every day situations, to therapy and medication. There are many books, websites, videos and blogs all dedicated to autistics advocating for themselves and sharing their stories, as well as support forums such as Wrong Planet.[21][22][23][24][25]

Misdiagnosis

Many individuals report receiving one or more misdiagnoses throughout their lives, before their autism was identified. Some of the most common misdiagnoses include Borderline personality disorder, and Obsessive–compulsive disorder. Other common co-morbid conditions which are often identified before ASD are ADHD, Social anxiety disorder, Major depressive disorder, Bipolar disorder, Eating disorder, Sensory processing disorder, and Tourette syndrome.[26]

Sexuality

Sexuality is often discussed within the autistic community, with many observations that identities other than cis-hetero seem to be more common than is observed in the neurotypical population. There have not been many formal studies on this to date, however members of the community speculate that autistic individuals generally have different ideals, perceptions, and desires than neurotypicals, or simply do not comprehend or agree with society's expectation, making them more apt to diverge from the norm.

Sexual orientation

In an ongoing study conducted at the University of Massachusetts Boston found autistic participants to more often identify as something other than heterosexual compared to an allistic (non-autistic) control group (92% and 72% respectively).[27] The study also found autistic individuals to be more likely to identify as asexual (37% ASD vs 22% NT).

Gender identity

In the same study, preliminary results demonstrate that assigned female at birth individuals on the autistic spectrum are much more likely to have trans, fluid, or non-binary gender identities than allistic counterparts, with 50% of autistic participants reporting a gender other than cisgender versus only 22% of the control group.[27]

Another study looking at the co-occurrence of ASD in patients with Gender Identity Disorder found 7.8% of patients to be on the autism spectrum.[28] This is much higher than the estimated 1% of people with ASD in the general population, suggesting a link between autism and gender variance.

Sexual satisfaction

A study conducted by Byers and Nichols (2014), explored the level of sexual satisfaction of high functioning autistic individuals. The researchers tested the sexual and relationship satisfaction of neurotypical individuals versus high functioning autistic individuals. The results suggest that men with ASD are generally less satisfied with their relationship or marriage compared to neurotypical men and women and women with ASD.[29]

Public figures

Documentaries

Television

Movies

Books

Fiction

Non-fiction

Music

References

  1. ↑ Fombonne, E. (2009). Epidemiology of pervasive developmental disorders. Pediatric Research, 65(6), 591–598. http://doi.org/10.1203/PDR.0b013e31819e7203
  2. ↑ Oien, Roald (2014-08-14). "Asperger’s and Girls by Tony Attwood, Temple Grandin, Teresa Bolick, Catherine Faherty, Lisa Iland, Jennifer McIlwee Myers, Ruth Snyder, Sheila Wagner, and Mary Wrobel". Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 45 (1): 272–272. doi:10.1007/s10803-014-2209-4. ISSN 0162-3257.
  3. ↑ Begeer, S., Mandell, D., Wijnker-Holmes, B., Venderbosch, S., Rem, D., Stekelenburg, F., & Koot, H. M. (2013). Sex Differences in the Timing of Identification Among Children and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 43, 1151–1156. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-012-1656-z
  4. ↑ Supekar, Kaustubh; Menon, Vinod (2015-09-04). "Sex differences in structural organization of motor systems and their dissociable links with repetitive/restricted behaviors in children with autism". Molecular Autism 6 (1). doi:10.1186/s13229-015-0042-z. PMC 4559968. PMID 26347127.
  5. ↑ Holtmann, Martin; Bölte, Sven; Poustka, Fritz (2007-05-01). "Autism spectrum disorders: sex differences in autistic behaviour domains and coexisting psychopathology". Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology 49 (5): 361–366. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8749.2007.00361.x. ISSN 1469-8749.
  6. ↑ Gockley, J., Willsey, a J., Dong, S., Dougherty, J. D., Constantino, J. N., & Sanders, S. J. (2015). The female protective effect in autism spectrum disorder is not mediated by a single genetic locus. Molecular Autism, 6, 25. http://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-015-0014-3
  7. ↑ Robinson, E. B., Lichtenstein, P., Anckarsater, H., Happe, F., & Ronald, a. (2013). Examining and interpreting the female protective effect against autistic behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(13), 5258–5262. http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211070110
  8. 1 2 Lai, M.-C., Baron-Cohen, S., & Buxbaum, J. D. (2015). Understanding autism in the light of sex/gender. Molecular Autism, 6, 1–6. http://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-015-0021-4
  9. ↑ Baron-Cohen, S. (2002). The extreme male brain theory of autism. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 6(6), 248–254. http://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(02)01904-6
  10. ↑ Lai, M.-C., Lombardo, M. V., Pasco, G., Ruigrok, A. N. V, Wheelwright, S. J., Sadek, S. a., … Baron-Cohen, S. (2011). A Behavioral Comparison of Male and Female Adults with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Conditions. PLoS ONE, 6(6), e20835. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0020835
  11. ↑ Lai, M.-C., Lombardo, M. V, Ruigrok, A. N. V, Chakrabarti, B., Wheelwright, S. J., Auyeung, B., … Baron-Cohen, S. (2012). Cognition in males and females with autism: similarities and differences. PloS One, 7(10), e47198. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047198
  12. 1 2 Ludlow, a. K., Roberts, H., & Gutierrez, R. (2015). Social Anxiety and Response to Touch: A Preliminary Exploration of Broader Autism Phenotype in Females. SAGE Open, 5, 2158244015580854–. http://doi.org/10.1177/2158244015580854
  13. ↑ Torres, E. B., Isenhower, R. W., Yanovich, P., Rehrig, G., Stigler, K., Nurnberger, J., & José, J. V. (2013). Strategies to develop putative biomarkers to characterize the female phenotype with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Neurophysiology, 110, 1646–62. http://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00059.2013
  14. ↑ Baron-Cohen, S., Jaffa, T., Davies, S., Auyeung, B., Allison, C., & Wheelwright, S. (2013). Do girls with anorexia nervosa have elevated autistic traits? Molecular Autism, 4(1), 24. http://doi.org/10.1186/2040-2392-4-24
  15. ↑ Rhind, C., Bonfioli, E., Hibbs, R., Goddard, E., Macdonald, P., Gowers, S., … Treasure, J. (2014). An examination of autism spectrum traits in adolescents with anorexia nervosa and their parents. Molecular Autism, 5(1), 56. http://doi.org/10.1186/2040-2392-5-56
  16. ↑ Cohen, I. L., Tsiouris, J. A., Flory, M. J., Kim, S.-Y., Freedland, R., Heaney, G., … Brown, W. T. (2010). A Large Scale Study of the Psychometric Characteristics of the IBR Modified Overt Aggression Scale: Findings and Evidence for Increased Self-Destructive Behaviors in Adult Females with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord, 40, 599–609.
  17. 1 2 "List of Female Asperger traits". help4aspergers.com. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  18. ↑ "Aspienwomen: Moving towards an adult female profile of Autism/Asperger Syndrome | Tania A. Marshall, M.Sc". Taniaannmarshall.wordpress.com. 2013-03-26. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  19. ↑ "Changing the Face of Autism - Video". Aspertypical. 2015-09-16. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  20. ↑ "Diagnosis Stories". Life on the Spectrum. 2012-12-15. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  21. ↑ "See. Understand. Experience. Autism.". Musings of an Aspie. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  22. ↑ "Autistic Self Advocacy Network | Nothing About Us Without Us". Autisticadvocacy.org. 2014-06-20. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  23. ↑ "Ask an Autistic Episodes". YouTube. 2015-06-28. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  24. ↑ "Top Reads for Girls and Women on the Spectrum". Aspertypical. 2015-08-13. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  25. ↑ Wilshire, Ben. "Autism Blogs Directory". Autismblogsdirectory.blogspot.ca. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  26. ↑ "Autistic Women: Misdiagnosis and the Importance of Getting it Right". Autismwomensnetwork.org. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  27. 1 2 "Might be interesting to y'all: results from a study about autistic women and sexuality. | Kintsugi". Kintsugi.seebs.net. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  28. ↑ De Vries, A. L. C., Noens, I. L. J., Cohen-Kettenis, P. T., van Berckelaer-Onnes, I. A., & Doreleijers, T. A. (2010). Autism Spectrum Disorders in Gender Dysphoric Children and Adolescents. J Autism Dev Disord, 40, 930–936. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-010-0935-9
  29. ↑ Byers, E (2014). "Sexual Satisfaction of High-Functioning Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder". Sexuality and Disability Sex.
  30. ↑ "Strange Empire: inside the character of Rebecca Blithely". YouTube. 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  31. ↑ "Resources for Parents | Sesame Street and Autism". Sesame Street and Autism. Retrieved 2015-10-25.
  32. ↑ "M is for Autism by The Students of Limpsfield Grange School — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists". Goodreads.com. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  33. ↑ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1000590.The_Same_Difference
  34. ↑ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8411268-mockingbird
  35. ↑ https://www.goodreads.com/series/107773-viral-nation
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