Ways Girls May Mask ASD

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Girls with ASD's

Above is a link to a good article that mentions this phenomenon of less intelligent women being diagnosed with ASD's.

There are indeed high IQ women who are not masking social deficits. So, is this an anomoly or is there another reason why people think this may be?

My school put me in GATE English because I showed signs of advanced creative English.

Math...not so much.

A label is intended to categorize identical items. If there is that much difference between male and female AS, then why not have a new label to make the differentiation clearer? The list of differences between female and male presentations in that "Girl's with ASDs" article is enough to make me ask: "how much do we shave off the corners of a square before we have to admit we're now dealing with a circle, rather than a variety of square?"

Aspergers Syndrome was initially a set of traits found in boys. The Little Professor. Intense special interests. etc etc, If we start saying that intense special interests are not necessarily a part of it anymore, and some with AS may be socially adept, and have no stims, etc surely we are now describing a different syndrome? Closely related, sure, but different enough that it may require different treatment.

The problem is that there are no undisputed biological markers. So they look for subjective external behavioral traits. Hence there is *always* going to be a danger of underdiagnosis in some cases and overdiagnoses in others. The irony is that many doctors don't even use the DSM - the psychiatrist I saw had his own criteria as he didn't agree with DSM!

There will also be arguments about whether such-and-such a trait is a variety of AS, or perhaps a whole separate disorder. Because ultimately, the categorisation is arbitrary. However, I don't see it as useless, I think the categories should lead towards the best treatment for those involved. And with the pathetic state of treatment currently avalable - ie zero for adults and for children, a bunch of completely unproven touchy-feely money-making 'early interventions' by dangerously self-appointed experts - whether your diagnosed or not means little. It is possible that male and female may benefit from different treatments, this thread (and many others) shows there can be a huge difference in our experiences, perhaps it's time for a new syndrome and the Little Professors can keep the Aspergers they know and love.

Well, I can see what you're saying, but also females share the same traits/criterion as the males but they are presented in different ways that the clinicians aren't expecting and thus aren't trained to look for. So, I don't think females need a separate diagnostic name or category.

I don´t think it´s quite as black and white as that; sure, I can imagine some highly intelligent women can hide their deficits, others can not. It has to do with many factors, like background, social training, personality, degree of AS. I tend to agree, anyway, that too many girls and women are being overlooked. I think the point is that many diverse men are being diagnosed, whereas only specific types of women seem to get a diagnosis. As far as I´m concerned, a study of only 34 Austrian boys- (something like that, not sure if I have my numbers right)- is an extremely narrow group of people to study. Can they know everything there is to know about AS just from these boys?

Here is a video about a girl who´s family had trouble getting a diagnosis, just because she is a girl. Whereas I thought she showed pretty clear traits; I think this sort of thing is happening a lot.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Story?id=4177353&page=1

I read the more intelligent one is, the more difficulty one has socializing. It's like a trade off. Your brain substitutes one thing for another. Social skills v. introspective thinking, problem solving, intense inner focus. The focus is either on what is going on inside you or what's going on with others. When you focus more on what's going on in your own mind, you don't pay as much attention to others, so it's harder to "mask" AS.

Think of the stereotypes of the extroverted, people oriented, person who doesn't understand life's complications, but is good at putting others at ease, and the moody, distant genius who constantly offends, yet is able to produce masterpieces in a relatively short amount of time.

That was interesting. I feel like I was a bit similar to Kaede as a child. I used to have to have control of games as well. I remember my mom telling me "You can't make up the rules to Monopoly." I could certainly never lose!

But I never had any learning difficulties in school. In elementary school I was gifted. As soon as algebra came into the picture though that became like a learning disability for me. My mind couldn't understand it. AT ALL.

The last time I heard Temple Grandin speak, she said she had the same problem with algebra. Her explanation was that you can't visualize it. You can't really make pictures out of the numbers. I'd think more visual ASD people would have problems. I'm more verbal than visual, so geometry was harder for me.

i did pretty well in algebra largely because you can physically manipulate equations to solve for x. but at geometry i was a prodigy. zero effort, straight As.

When I was a kid I had significant difficulty in talking to my classmates in a way that I would relate to them or they would relate to me. However I could also talk to adults with ease, and they didn't seem to hate me like my classmates did. I thought this was just because I was smarter than my classmates (my thoughts at the time) but as it turns out, the adults were merely tolerating me and my differences. I was no better at talking to them at all. I only discovered that years later.

I think I hid my AS by being quiet. In the classroom I would do my work and not talk to anyone so the teachers probably didn't think there was anything 'wrong' with me, just that I was shy and a hard worker (always said that in school reports).

That makes a lot of sense. Actually I did horribly in all math after elementary school- algebra, geometry and whatever the other one is I failed It took me an entire semester in college to understand what had been taught at the beginning of that semester. It's really strange because, with simple math, I was awesome! I came in 2nd place at my school's yearly Math Contest. Basically cuz I could see the numbers in my head and put them together like blocks or something.

This sounds quite a lot like me in Elementary School, except I wouldn´t say I could talk to adults "with ease"; I could talk to them much better than I could to kids though. Oh, but I was also pretty good with children who were younger than myself; and then I could be in charge and direct everything.

Unfortunately, I didn´t think I was smarter than my classmates, I thought I was dumber. It just seemed like they could do all these things that I couldn´t do. I had to work much harder than the others. That didn´t invite much self-esteem.

This was totally me - I'm an engineer (what I would call a "softer" engineer as I am an environmental engineer) and I HATE Math for the most part. Algebra in High School caused me many problems. In college it was truly a stuggle, I had to be tutored in pre-calculus. But I was determined to do it. Not because I was interested in it, but because someone told me I couldn't.

Personally, I do tend to agree that girls are under diagnosed in general. In a lot of cases (not all) girls just aren't as outwardly obvious?

No. A good many (but not all) are good at "masking" social difficulties.

http://www.dailyemerald.com/news/gender ... -1.1470337

This is an interesting article about some of the differences many clinicians aren't aware of.

Do you think it is common for AS girls to struggle with higher maths?