Temper tantrums up odds of autism diagnosis in girls

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Maybe. Just maybe this is why I got diagnosed.

I was bullied for being odd.
Instead of becoming anxious and decide to hide my own difference -- I became very aggressive, very violent, and very angry.
I do not cry because I'm an odd out, I cry because I was very angry that I need to hold back anger by crying.
I'm more likely punch someone back than run away. I more likely yell back than being silenced.

So, yes. Maybe, just maybe...

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Temper tantrums, inevitably, brings attention upon a person. They incite the "authorities" to want to assess that person. Tantrums scare the "authorities" into action.

Girls tend to be less demonstrative in their behavior---hence, they get less attention overall.

But once they become demonstrative (i.e., through throwing tantrums), they obviously become better "candidates" for an assessment and diagnosis.

Explains why I didn't get diagnosed as a kid. I did what I was told and never got in trouble, never disruptive - all the reports have good behaviour noted and mention I'm quiet/shy.

"prerequisite", though - where in the criteria is this stated? I'm misdiagnosed if that's the case, my problems aren't emotional - it's communication for me.

I certainly bought attention to myself as a classically-autistic toddler who screamed constantly, knocked things off store/shop shelves, and didn't talk at all.

I had a lot of temper tantrums as a child, but was very verbal too.

At school I stopped having them when I got to about 6 because my shyness kicked in and so didn't want to show myself up in front of the class.

But my temper tantrums continued at home. I didn't have them that much, but still enough to say I was prone to them. I would have one if I couldn't get what I wanted, or if other kids wanted to do something I didn't. I thought that screaming and crying would get them to change their minds or give in to me, and when I noticed it wasn't working I became destructive; slamming doors and throwing things. Then I eventually calmed down, especially if I was sent to my room for being naughty. I think feelings of guilt kicked in.

Well I cried a lot when I was a kid and I sometimes had behavior and no one batted an eye for it. I was often immature emotionally and often told to stop crying like a two year old and I was often in trouble for how I handled things. I had to be reminded all the time how old I was and being told what age I was acting. It was like they had all all these rules assigned to each age and I couldn't keep up with all these rules because I didn't know these rules unless they were spelled out to me. I wouldn't know I was breaking the age rule until I was told and still no one batted an eye. I was 12 when my mom realized I was only a little girl on the inside. How did she not notice? How did any doctors not notice either? How did my clinical psychologist not notice either when she diagnosed me with ADD in 4th grade? She didn't seem concerned about my immature emotions when she mentioned them on the evaluation report.

Though my school tried to say I had a behavior problem but my mom didn't buy it. Now she admits I did have a behavior but she always uses these air quote gestures and says I had anxiety. I always knew I got upset more easily and was more sensitive but never understood why I was this way. I am not as emotional anymore like I used to be.

I don't know why I still flew under the radar for doctors for my problems. No one knew what was wrong with me. Now I think it was because I was a girl and I was social and wanted friends and I talked to people and showed interest in others and because I did pretend play and had an imagination and always copied people and mimicked which I thought everyone did. I didn't have any of the obvious behavior that made me stand out as me having something wrong with me and I didn't have any stereotypes for how a person acts when they are different. I just came off as a brat and someone who acts up and has behavior and someone who just needed to toughen up and someone who didn't care. My mom had to do her own therapy with me and find ways to help me and she has admitted to me in my teens she always knew I had something.


Edit: it mentioned it had to be severe and mine wasn't severe so that is probably why. I never had severe behaviors because I have heard of worse stories about behavior problems and they make mine look minor.

Well I was disruptive all right when I got diagnosed. If you can call having violent outbursts several times a day, deliberately destroying your own possessions because you know from experience you can't just wreck the ones in the home, swearing a lot when you normally don't swear, and just generally acting like a psychopath as being "disruptive".

I had occasional outbursts before, but never really that extreme up until the last couple of months before I was finally diagnosed. But then again I was living in an environment that many NTs would have found stressful.

My mom always thought I was biploar or something else in addition to the autism because I frequently had mood swings and temper tantrums.

Squeakiest wheel.

My diagnosis came shortly after I turned three because my preschool suspected I was Autistic due to the fact that I would only play by myself and never talked to the staff or other kids. As a young child, I would have a lot of outbursts at home or any other time when my routine was disrupted. In school, I would only have problems if there was a disruption in my day (like having gym class on a day when we were supposed to have art class or having a substitute teacher in class).

Although my diagnosis is NLD rather than autism, the two are definitely linked as NLD is similar to aspergers in many ways, I can relate to this.

I didn't have many tantrums at school as I was a quiet and anxious child, I just used to listen to my teachers and get on with my work. However, I had many tantrums at home, including meltdowns. I did start to have some tantrums at school when I was 14, this was when I started to my special needs school as I sometimes felt one of my teachers was forcing me to do things I was not ready for.

Now I am 27 and I still have tantrums and meltdowns at home and no one in my family really understand why I have them, it's like this intense anxiety takes over and all I see is black and I want to run away.

Girls definitely need to be diagonised earlier, my NLD diagnosis wasn't until I was 21 but I had speech therapy and one to one classroom support, how did they not pick up on this when I was a child?

"A child who is aggressive, noisy, exhibiting lack of motor inhibition (wild, acting out) is attended to, and this behavior is characteristic of boys. A child who is well behaved, quiet, and apparently compliant will often be overlooked, sometimes despite underachievement. Such a child is quite likely to be a girl. Consider the following scenario:
A schoolteacher tells students at the beginning of a lesson that they should be sure to ask for help whenever they need it to understand the lesson. A boy with AS has his hand raised from the outset and won't put it down. The subject matter is after all, new and he has taken the teacher's words literally. A girl may have taken the teacher literally as well, but she resolutely keeps her hand down. She has known too many occasions when people's words did not represent their intention. She has been ridiculed or criticized for missing point. So she keeps her questions to herself and, in this isloation, misunderstands a good many things, therefore failing the lesson. In this hypothetical example, observers would easily detect the literal-mindedness, with a touch of perseveration, in the boy's response, which so clearly manifests AS cognitive traits. The girl, though she has the same traits, handles them differently in her efforts to navigate through a confusing world. But she is AS -- and her life challenges are rooted in AS -- just the same."
-- Jean Kearns Miller, "Under-diagnosis in Women", Women From Another Planet?

This definitely explains why I wasn't diagnosed until my forties.