Anyone Else with an Aspie Daughter?

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I always thought that Asperger's was far more prevelent in boys, but my 9yo was just diagnosed today. She also has "mixed syndrome" which is basically a mix and match of several other mental disorders to make one all her own. I would love to know if there is anything I can expect as a mother of an Aspie than might be unique to girls.

Well, I'm a mother and Aspie, and my daughter is Aspie. What in particular did you want to know? We're all unique individuals, after all, so I'm not sure what I can tell you that will be helpful. My daughter has just finished her Associates Degree at community college and is starting her first "big" job on Monday. I've been in the workforce for 30+ years (including 8 years at university in there and a year off doing the "maternity" thing). It would be helpful if you could give me some idea what kind of questions you had? I can't think of anything that's universal only to female Aspies....

Feel free to PM. I don't normally answer unsolicited ones, but I'll remember your name.

My 9 y/o girl was dxed with HFA/asperger's last year. I'm also HFS/Asperger's and so is my husband.

What do you want to know? I can tell you that my daughter has participated in studies at the UC DAvis MIND Institute, particularly studies to explain the emotional and personality difference between HFA boys and HFA girls that lead to fewer diagnoses in girls- the specialist there suspects that nearly as many HFA girls are out there as boys but they are underdiagnosed because they have fewer "behavioral problems" at school and in public. There is speculation that specific hormones that come into play such as Oxytocin which is in higher levels in girls, may hold some of the explanation. Girls with HFA tend to be more withdrawn, shy, and don't display behavioral problems in public and school. They reserve their meltdowns and behavioral issues for the more comfortable environment of home. They tend to have more problems processing their own emotions which can result in more crying out of frustration, being over-emotional, etc. My daughter cries over everything, that's for sure. I was much like her as a kid and eventually outgrew it and hope she does the same.

Oh, yes. I used to cry at the drop of a hat as a young person. Any really strong emotion caused me to cry - anger, fear, sorry, pain, frustration, joy, anything and I'd cry. (Then I hit adolescence and got the added bonus of blushing like a beet when uncomfortable - that was just so... so... nevermind!)

It took a REALLY long time to overcome that crying thing. Some of my first jobs, when I'd have to be in a board meeting or office meeting, if the discussion became heated I'd dissolve into tears. As I was in a profession where I was one of the first women to be working there, it was damned annoying to be trying for parity when the tears thing kept blindsiding me. My credibility suffered tremendously.

I will now only cry when I'm tremendously moved and not expecting it. Other than that, I've learned to hide it all well. It's a matter of practice, really. And I ~never~ had meltdowns away from home (except for the crying thing) once I got past my first grade or two in school. I was not among friends and it would have left me tremendously vulnerable.

I was so straight-arrow it wasn't funny, and the thought of a teacher even being cross with me about my not performing well was enough to put me back in the tears mode again. They never had to threaten to send me to the office....

I was also a cronic crier when stressed,angry,confussed,over tired.This was until I was in my late 30's and began Effexor,which tends to keep m from crying but makes me more likely to show my anger in meltdowns(like the other day at Circuit City when they said I had to mail my computer in to get it fixed...arrrgggg).


Female differences?I think we may be mmore vulnerable to depression,eating disorders(control,low self-esteem,sensory issues)
I was actually to shy to eat in front of others and avoided any public eating.I think sexual exploitation might be more likely,it was for me.I just wanted to be liked and didnt realize people lied to get "something".If they said they liked me,I thought they did and was repeatedly suprised when they ignored me "the day after".I also hated "girl things" and that made it difficult to relate to my female peers(I read existential writers and climbed trees,collected rocks and bugs...),no friendships.I had no sense of what was in style,just what I liked,which is really important in your teens.13-26 were tough years to be aspie female.

I'm glad to know I wasn't the only chronic "boob"/crier and neither is my daughter. To me, emotion was just like overload- any emotion. I toughed up at 17-18 with my parents' divorce, a few broken heart situations, and being thrown into adult responsibility of raising my younger siblings almost on my own- Dad left the state and Mom decided it was more fun to be single than a mom.

I am no longer emotional- rarely show strong emotion. In fact, my husband cries more easily in movies that I do and I tease him for it. I am however, fiercely emotional when it comes to my loved ones, my family. I have very strong emotional bonds with them. I am also the level-headed one when it comes to THEIR emotions- like my mom and sister. LOL! All I can say is they really should learn to listen to my advice after YEARS of it proving to be spot-on, but they'll never learn. I'm able to look at things more logically I think. I do suffer from chronic foot-in-mouth disease with them though and am constantly hurting my mother's feelings because I'm so honest with her. Same with my little sister. I think Mom excuses it more now because she knows of my diagnosis, but it doesn't change the fact that I do tell her off, I do hold her responsible, and I don't enable her. She's a very over-emotional, needy, and clingy NT person and gets on my nerves to no end, but she's my mom and I love her. LOL!

I am lucky that I was never preyed upon by guys because I was VERY vulnerable, had VERY poor self-esteem, but I was also VERY straight and narrow and lived in isolation- in the country. I was very prone to nearly becoming obsessed with boys that I liked though and I was clueless as to how to relate to them, etc. There was one guy throughout high school that had a crush on me- and I on him. I had no idea. LOL! I was prone to falling fast and hard for guys once I started really dating after I was 19. I lucked out and found my perfect aspie mate when I was almost 20. We just clicked and that was that. I've been married for 11 years, have 4 kids(2 adopted, 1 foster who's adoption is not finalized and turning into a nightmare). So being an aspie girl isn't a death sentence. I'm happy. My life is full. I am much more comfortable in my skin than I used to be since I now know that the reason I'm different is because my brain's wired differently. I no longer try to act or be NT and that's made all the difference.

I think the best advice I can offer the mother of an aspie girl, being that I am an aspie girl and I have an aspie girl, is to let them be themselves, don't try to push them to be something they're not. Just love and accept them for who they are and don't try to change them. Let them know that they are different and it's a good kind of different. They are not defective.

[quote="Jennyfoo"]My 9 y/o girl was dxed with HFA/asperger's last year. I'm also HFS/Asperger's and so is my husband.

What do you want to know? I can tell you that my daughter has participated in studies at the UC DAvis MIND Institute, particularly studies to explain the emotional and personality difference between HFA boys and HFA girls that lead to fewer diagnoses in girls- the specialist there suspects that nearly as many HFA girls are out there as boys but they are underdiagnosed because they have fewer "behavioral problems" at school and in public.

They reserve their meltdowns and behavioral issues for the more comfortable environment of home.


My partners daughter was diagnosed 11 months ago, whan she was 10 and the above comments are SO true of her. We saw a lot of her 'odd' behaviour at home but the school saw nothing wrong at all. When her mum tried to discuss it with her teacher she was virtually accused of being a paranoid mother. Even when she was officially diagnosed the school simply refused to recognise it.
Since then she has moved up to secondary school and had problems pretty much straight away due to the increased expectations and the completely different structure. Fortunately her new school have been fantastic, when she started having problems they arranged a proper assessment and she now has a statement of special needs in place. She has a learning support assistant in most of her lessons and by pure coincidence her LSA also has a daughter on the spectrum so she relates really well to J. She's doing fine at school academically. still having a few problems socially but to be honest it probably bother us more than it bothers her.
In spite of being academically quite bright she's extremely immature emotionally and in a lot of her behaviour. I'd say she's more like a 7 year old in many ways, is this a typical trait?

My daughter doesn't not cry much - she holds herself back in order to appear "strong". She does have some existing bad behaviors in school - making noises, being a smart *ss, and being very, very blunt. She does have low self esteem, and is a perfectionist.

I think the main thing a parent of a girl with Asperger's needs to be aware of is feelings of loneliness and being depressed because peers don't want to be friends. I know my daughter tries too hard to get people to like her and 99% of the time her feelings get hurt. Her conversation skills are not great - it's hard for her to listen to the other person. Become very familiar with her difficulties and do as much as you can to help her through the really tough times. I know all these things are common for boys and girls, but I think girls tend to be much more emotional - especially when it comes to having friends.

Typical? Hard to say. I was intellectually light-years ahead of my peers, but still hanging with much younger kids when I was in school. My daughter is also intellectually gifted, but is only now at 21 where a lot of her friends were a few years ago.... I was almost completely socially inept, but came from a home where our mother was...let's just say she was not well... and so I was pretty much never taught any of the "normal" things a mother teaches her daughters. Given that, I don't know how much of my social klutz factor was from not having had instruction in the finer points at home, not being able to recognize the "accepted" behaviors in public, and how much was just finding many of them pointless and not worth my time. I definitely had a well-defined sense of "you're wasting my time" as a girl. It took me many years and a lot of hostile reactions to learn to just keep that to myself. That and I was really clueless - I'd believe almost anything anyone told me as the absolute truth. That caused more than a few disasters.

How fortunate for your daughter that she has accommodations at school! I remember moving from elementary school to junior high, where we changed classes every 45 minutes and I had seven different teachers a day. That was pure hell, when combined with the crowds in the hallway and only 5 minutes to get to my locker and get the combination in with all that noise and shoving, and then to get across the building to the next class.... arrrgh! It did not get any easier in high school (which was a much larger building, with 3,000 students). I placed my daughter in a small fine & performing arts school where she stayed from grade six through high school graduation, so she knew the teachers, the facilities, and, fortunately, they had a small gifted program and a lot of eccentric "artsy" students where she fit right in. Other than that, neither of us had any sort of accommodations, yet we both managed to get through school, find a way to learn, and make it into (and through) college. It would have been much less stressful and definitely less emotionally painful with what the kids now have, the IEPs, etc., but it's certainly "do-able" without them. The good side of all that was that I was held to precisely the same standards as everyone else, and I learned how to meet them on my own terms. It wasn't the most comfortable experience, but I do believe it made me a much stronger, more resilient person than I might have otherwise been.

Much luck to your child - it's nice to see that you have the issue on your radar! Something to remember about young girls, in junior high and high school. They can be vicious - it's like a flock of chickens, one gets sick or is unusual and the others may go on a rampage and try to peck that one to death. Being socially inept is like waving a red flag at the flock, saying "hey, victim here, victim here". And sometimes all it takes is wearing the "wrong" color eyeshadow on a given day. Do what you can, in advance, to prepare her for that. Coping strategies, damage control. Because it will happen.

[quote="Nan
Much luck to your child - it's nice to see that you have the issue on your radar! Something to remember about young girls, in junior high and high school. They can be vicious - it's like a flock of chickens, one gets sick or is unusual and the others may go on a rampage and try to peck that one to death. Being socially inept is like waving a red flag at the flock, saying "hey, victim here, victim here". And sometimes all it takes is wearing the "wrong" color eyeshadow on a given day. Do what you can, in advance, to prepare her for that. Coping strategies, damage control. Because it will happen.[/quote]

We are very much aware of this, especially as she goes to a single sex school. Girls can be a lot more cruel than boys in some ways. J is very naive and tries so hard to be nice to everyone, but she's likely to miss the fact that others are not always so nice to her. She would be very easily fooled by other girls 'pretending' to be nice just so they could laugh at her. Socially I think she struggles partly because of her general immaturity - she's not really interested in what most 11 year olds are interested in, she relates much better to the 7 year old girl who lives next door. Also, she can be very bossy and controlling which kids her own age don't tolerate as well as younger ones. We've tried explaining to her that she doesn't ALWAYS have to be in charge and tell people what to do, but she just sees it as being helpful because her way is obviously better and they're getting it wrong!

We are very much aware of this, especially as she goes to a single sex school. Girls can be a lot more cruel than boys in some ways. J is very naive and tries so hard to be nice to everyone, but she's likely to miss the fact that others are not always so nice to her. She would be very easily fooled by other girls 'pretending' to be nice just so they could laugh at her. Socially I think she struggles partly because of her general immaturity - she's not really interested in what most 11 year olds are interested in, she relates much better to the 7 year old girl who lives next door. Also, she can be very bossy and controlling which kids her own age don't tolerate as well as younger ones. We've tried explaining to her that she doesn't ALWAYS have to be in charge and tell people what to do, but she just sees it as being helpful because her way is obviously better and they're getting it wrong! [/quote]

Ah. Yes. I remember that. Unfortunately, that's one of the "learn it the hard way" things, I think.

You might get lucky and get through to her by sitting her down and being excruciatingly, painfully deliberate, and precise in explaining that other people do NOT share her opinion and what the outcome is likely to be unless she changes. It will be up to her to want to change, though, and at 11... I would have said something to the effect that those other people were "stupid" and not moved my behavior one iota. She'll just have to deal with it. You'll end up just having to grit your teeth and watch.

You could try again in a few years, if she comes to you and says she's unhappy because of the social thing. Once she's unhappy about it, then you have leverage to get her to change to however it is you want her to be. Or think she should be. Or to get her to a place where she won't be unhappy. Good luck!

I guess I should clarify Megan's issues. She is a very sweet and overly affectionate child. She will often hug people, including strangers, and she wants to be everyone's friend. She is also very jealous of anyone she feels is encroaching on my attention, including my 2yo granddaughter.

She has a couple of close friends, but she is always afraid that I like or love them more than I do her. She will often claim that I don't love her at all. Megan also is in constant fear that I will die, and she never wants me to be away from her. Even if I were a stay at home mom, this would be impossible, but I have a busy schedule outside the home. I often have to go away for several days at a time.

Megan has some OCD issues and hates any variances from her routine. She is also very literal. If bedtime in 9:00, it is not 8:59. This, in addition to her uncanny ability to figure out anything she hears no matter how hard we try to keep the conversation over her head, can make her a very difficult child. She is also extremely sensitive and will burst into tears over practically anything. Another problem is that she is subject to sensory overload. She will cling to me when she enters a place with too much excitement, such as Chuck E Cheese.

The thing that worries me most is that, whether she realizes it or not, she is being teased in school. She will not remain oblivious this for long, and, as I already said, her feelings are hurt easily.

Is any of this unique to girls? Are there any other strictly feminine issues I should know about?

I don't know that it's unique to girls - I've heard all of this over and over again on Aspie boards from males and females. My advice - stay away from Chuckie Cheese. Plan to have a precise routine. You may have to remind her repeatedly to not be hugging strangers. Being intellectually bright in some respects... well, that's us. I always talked to my daughter as if she was an intellectual equal. It seems to have worked.

A lot of us learn to deal with all this as time goes on. She'll learn to cope, and yep, her feelings are going to get trampled. As long as you maintain a good rapport with her, so that you and she can talk about things that trouble her, you'll be able to help her cope. The only thing that I see troubling in anything you said above is her fear that you don't love her and her separation anxiety. That's a red flag waving that something's amiss and needs to be checked into.

As to the "female" stuff: You might find that she's not interested in "being a girl" as in putting on all the pretend garbage that is culturally loaded onto females. She may not want to do makeup, may dress like a trucker, may not like boys. She might prefer playing in the dirt to playing with dolls. That sort of thing (my own daughter was obsessive about programming the computer starting at age six and didn't want to play with the other kids - they were stupid). If so, that's the way she is. You kind of have to accept the kid for who she is and not try to mold her into something she's not. My own kid did the "dress like a trucker" thing for years and then, when she hit age 15, some internal switch flipped almost overnight and she became the make-up expert in her school. She wears a lot of it, wears it well, and is into dressing up to the nines. If she could wear hats and gloves every day she would, and she covets 1940s hairstyles. NO idea where that chromosome came from... but it's her, so it's ok. It makes her happy, so it makes me happy.

Good luck!

I had many of the same issues as your daughters. AS girls appear to have fewer academic problems than their male counterparts, but their social problems can be just as great. I almost fit the profile of the dowdy, "Marion the Librarian" type. I was always a bookworm and read well above grade level. However, I had social problems bad enough to get me seriously bullied at times. I did have some friends, but was too dumb to know it. I feel bad now about it.

I think girls with autism can seem very emotional and clingy, which is supposedly the opposite of the stereotype. I was very clingy and emotional as a child, yet also could not identify or process my emotions (I still can't, really) and had terrible trouble interacting socially, and the few friends I managed to have became obsessions (with jealousy, anger, etc.). Be careful when she reaches puberty/ teenage years... if she can't read social cues, and can't read people or situations for signs of danger, she could find herself in bad situations with the opposite gender where she could be hurt or violated emotionally and sexually.

As to the "female" stuff: You might find that she's not interested in "being a girl" as in putting on all the pretend garbage that is culturally loaded onto females. She may not want to do makeup, may dress like a trucker, may not like boys. She might prefer playing in the dirt to playing with dolls. That sort of thing (my own daughter was obsessive about programming the computer starting at age six and didn't want to play with the other kids - they were stupid). If so, that's the way she is. You kind of have to accept the kid for who she is and not try to mold her into something she's not. My own kid did the "dress like a trucker" thing for years and then, when she hit age 15, some internal switch flipped almost overnight and she became the make-up expert in her school. She wears a lot of it, wears it well, and is into dressing up to the nines. If she could wear hats and gloves every day she would, and she covets 1940s hairstyles. NO idea where that chromosome came from... but it's her, so it's ok. It makes her happy, so it makes me happy.

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Megan is quite the opposite. She loves makeup and clothes. In fact, she wants to be a fashion designeer when she grows up. SHe loves dance and all the girlie stuff! And boys? Is it normal for a 9yo to be boy-crazy?