Are there more female Aspies than people believe?

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02 Jul 2010, 6:28 pm

It's also because when females have the traits such as: avoiding eye contact, inability to play with others appropriately, fixated interests,
many GP's or psychologists would just say the girl is SHY or ANXIOUS.

Females more often get diagnosed with emotion related labels, because many people stereotype females as being excessively emotional. But when a male has the same symptoms, they look at it differently, because fewer boys are classified as SHY.

My doctor said my behaviour was related to being very SHY as a child. However, I was a shy child who would often talk to strangers and say anything. I didn't have any conception of social phobia, or nervousness, I just didn't know how to interact. But to them, I only appeared SHY.

I am in my 20's so when I was young nobody really heard of mild autism, especially in a smaller town.

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sinsboldly
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02 Jul 2010, 7:32 pm

Kiseki wrote:

sinsboldly wrote:

Kiseki wrote:

I read an interesting report that 60% of diagnosed Aspie females are lesbian. Autism is a primarily male-brained phenomenon which makes me curious if it something in the androgen levels.

I would like to see your source and documentation for this report. Especially since testosterone (or lack of it) does not a homosexual (male or female) make. It always amuses me when folks think their is a list of all 'diagnosed' Aspie females (or males). Do people really think there is a data base with all our names dutifully listed there with our credentials? :roll:

Not bloody likely.

Female Aspies PRESENT Asperger's Syndrome DIFFERENTLY than male Aspies. Hans Asperger himself declared that women did not/could not 'have' AS, although he changed his mind later in his career.

However I did revel in the idea that Aspie females were the 'rarest of the rare', but I have had to disabuse myself of that conceit early on in my (late in life) diagnosis.

Merle

Hope I didn't offend. Here is what I read- Donna Williams' blog:

http://blog.donnawilliams.net/2008/03/2 ... pie-women/

It interested me cuz I am actually gay myself and have Aspie traits. I wonder why I'm gay as well as why I seem quite Aspie-ish.

thank you, Kiseki, and no, no, you didn't offend me, I just get brusque sometimes when I hear about this vast data base of diagnosed Aspies they make their conclusions about, is all. I was undiagnosed for 56 years and so I know they didn't have my info to access and if there is me, there are thousands and thousands other just like me, undiagnosed and just full of great stastical information that would tilt the mean and scramble the bell curve. :roll:

I wonder why I was/am heterosexual, sometimes, too.

whitetiger
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02 Jul 2010, 9:09 pm

sinsboldly wrote:

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You see, the females diagnosed are lower in intelligence than the males.

sez who? That (non-existant) list of diagnosed female Aspies?

Please, don't get me wrong, all I am saying is I would like to see the documentation on all the stats and conclusions drawn that are being reported on this thread.

that's all.

The stats/documentation are included in the thread I posted the assertion under. It's in the article by Shana Nichols

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John_Browning
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02 Jul 2010, 9:14 pm

n4mwd wrote:

donnie_darko wrote:

I've heard 80% of Aspies are male, but that sounds absurd to me. Maybe they're not diagnosed as often?

I heard that 3 out of 4 are male. Females have an XX chromosome and males have an XY chromosome. The female X chromosome has extra information that better protects them from the problem. There are many syndromes and genetic diseases that work that way.

I would be VERY interested to see any literature you have on that.

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02 Jul 2010, 10:05 pm

All opinion here:

a) Aspie traits are often seen as a positive in girls and women.
b) Aspie traits are easier to miss when observing women
c) Aspie traits are easier to mask by women.
d) Aspie traits, as they appear in women, are more commonly mis-diagnosed as other mood disorders.

I'd be interested in taking a look at the Aspie test, and listing out the results for women and for men, and comparing the results.

I suspect there is a nearly equal number of aspie women and men.
I think that there are MORE WOMEN with "apise like traits" than there are men with the same traits.
But I think there are MORE MEN with "many aspie like traits"

I think it's a fair assumption to make that if you have more traits, you're both more likely to seek a diagnosis, and more likely to get a diagnosis.

regarding the comment made about women aspies being of lower intelligence....
I'm almost loathe to even comment on this one, but here goes:
This is likely true. But by it I mean that the lower a person's intelligence, the less they are able to mask issues. Highly intelligent (and even almost average to above normal intelligence) women will be more able to cope with the symptoms given the gender roles & expectations that exist in society... And thus, likely never know they were an aspie, let alone seek or get a diagnosis.

Another interesting thing to compare would be the number of aspies who make it through childhood without being either a) diagnosed as Aspie, or b) mis-diagnosed as something else.... vs. the number of aspies that are diagnosed as aspie in childhood (or misdiagnosed as something else) Then cross reference for intelligence and gender.
The reason for this, would be to see if intelligence does play a factor in the creation of coping skills. (which I know it does, but in medicine you can't even claim a cold makes you sneeze or cough if you don't have a source for it)

Anyways, there's a few of my thoughts on the topic, plus a few tangent thoughts too...

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02 Jul 2010, 10:20 pm

For those who did not read my original post, I was writing about how intelligence is probably lower in females than males with ASD because of our ability to mask and compensate. It's all in the article I linked to. I hate that some people are getting the wrong idea.

I agree with Exclavius that it's probably a one to one ratio, if doctors knew how to diagnose women.

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02 Jul 2010, 11:14 pm

sinsboldly wrote:

Quote:

You see, the females diagnosed are lower in intelligence than the males.

OMG...WHO said that? I would like to see proof, because I don't believe it for a minute.

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Kiseki
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03 Jul 2010, 5:04 am

sinsboldly wrote:

I wonder why I was/am heterosexual, sometimes, too.

Yes, that is true. I'm sure there are many many women out there who have Aspie traits and don't even know about AS. I certainly didn't know much about it until recently.

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03 Jul 2010, 5:23 am

Isn't it a fact that there is roughly a 2:1 ratio of males with LFA then females with LFA? This seems to indicate to me that the male brain is more vulnerable to being Autistic.

whitetiger
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03 Jul 2010, 4:54 pm

I'm a little frustrated that no one seems to have read either of my posts and are taking what I said way out of context, even though I clarified it in the last post.

Yes, research (link below for source) has shown that females with ASD have lower intelligence overall than males with ASD. I believe (and so does the article) that it is because intelligent girls with ASD's mask symptoms better.

THE SOURCE OF MY QUOTE

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Aimless
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03 Jul 2010, 5:01 pm

whitetiger wrote:

I understand what you're saying. The statement "females with ASD have lower intelligence overall than males with ASD" just sounds as if you're including undiagnosed along with diagnosed.

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03 Jul 2010, 5:05 pm

whitetiger wrote:

Do you mean studies show females diagnosed with ASD have lower intelligence than males diagnosed with ASD, and you believe it's because intelligent females with ASD, here including the undiagnosed, mask symptoms better, and thus are less often diagnosed?

I'm thinking that's what you mean. I'm thinking what you say makes sense, but only if your "intelligent girls with ASDs" who mask symptoms aren't included, or often not included, in the "females with ASD" in the studies.

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03 Jul 2010, 5:13 pm

Okay... I see you did in the first post in this thread specify diagnosed.

Also, better when posting links to just paste in the URL:

http://www.google.com/

That way, it's clear that it's a link. If you use the link posting tool, it looks like ordinary text. It's not colored or underlined to show it's a link.

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03 Jul 2010, 5:19 pm

Thanks for the tips

I'll try posting links differently next time.

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03 Jul 2010, 5:48 pm

Gender dictates autism symptoms, study says

Quote:

According to the lecture slides, research has demonstrated males and females are not alike at all. Boys begin to show autistic tendencies at a younger age than girls. Usually in the pre-school age, boys will begin to show signs of autism. Girls will generally show signs around 12 years old.

Boys will have social impairments, repetitive and limited play, and will be easily distracted.

Girls on the autism spectrum take longer to process information and understand the fundamentals of social communication, and will show social impairments in adolescence.

Many boys with autism often have few or no friends, while girls may have “little mothers,” girls their own age who nurture and help them. Girls with ASD also have stronger pretend-play skills and mirror-neuron skills than boys with ASD.

If girls with autism do not receive assistance and are not diagnosed at an early age, they are at a high risk for depression, anxiety, isolation, identity crisis and eating disorders.

...

Winter-Messiers is currently researching depression, anxiety, friendship quality and suicidal ideation in males and females with ASD and comparing the data results to see the differences.

“The field of autism is going through growing pains,” Herr said. “The more we know, the more we know we don’t know.”

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donnie_darko
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03 Jul 2010, 6:53 pm

Are female aspies different from male ones? Like are they more like NTs than male aspies? or are they even MORE aspie-ish?

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