Main Differences with AS between Girls and Boys???

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B19
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23 Apr 2014, 6:54 pm

Females are culturally expected to be "naturally" better social communicators, so this expectation is an added pressure on ASD women and girls. I suspect that what looks like social skills to others in a lot of ASD women is actually a talent for mimicry.



ZombieBrideXD
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23 Apr 2014, 8:11 pm

i am a Text book Aspie Girl case

-adapts her best in social situations

- likely to have a interest in art and Animals

- imaginative and artistic

-oversensitivity

- uses scripting

i still had severe issues in Social Situations but i worked very hard to cover them up, now theyre not so bad! i can appear almost normal.

my Psychologist knew there was a difference between boys and girls because he worked so much with teens and kids with aspergers and autism, thats why social workers had such a tough time seeing what he did.

also, my advice to girls with suspecting aspergers is to talk to a psych that works with autistic kids 1 on 1.


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23 Apr 2014, 8:15 pm

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I do think of myself as a bit of a chameleon at times. I am careful to tailor conversation to the people around me so that I say what is true but in a way that blends in with their views. I tend to see the positives or negatives in things and choose to express the points that make me look like I agree with what they say. I usually feel inadequate and assume I am screwing up somehow, so I just want to not feel that.
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23 Apr 2014, 8:54 pm

If you come on a Tuesday or a Thursday, you can see me talk to the ghost of Elvis and juggle rabid cats.... :lol:



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23 Apr 2014, 9:51 pm

I have never been a chameleon. I've always stuck out.

I did spend time in 3rd/4th grade through 8th grade analyzing interactions. However, I never did it so I could mimic them. I was rather odd, I would stalk the bullies because I desperately wanted to understand it--because I didn't. I would make working theories and then go pester the bullies about them. :P this might explain why I consider myself good at heated interactions and major conflicts as an adult, but still pretty terrible at the regular stuff.

I did get a "mother hen" friend (my first) when I was 8. I inherited all of her friends (or else I wouldn't have any...still). She likely saved me more than I know.


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So you know who just said that:
I am female, I am married
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I have been diagnosed with Aspergers and MERLD
I have significant chronic medical conditions as well


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23 Apr 2014, 10:21 pm

billiscool wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:

And what good is that when, the resulting relationships never work out? Maybe at first glance that seems like it makes life all that much easier, but honestly being in a relationship just to have it end abruptly because you fail at intimacy wears on you after a while. But in reality I cannot walk up to anyone I don't know unless its like the cashier at the store I am supposed to walk up to to buy things...but yeah cannot initiate interaction. Suppose in my case sometimes people initiate interaction with me, so then I'll talk to them but if they never said anything to me I would have never said anything to them.

There is more to social interaction than initially getting a date or starting an intimate relationship....and impression i got was this thread was about general social interaction not dating per say.


isn't talking to guys social interaction? is dating social interaction?


Yes that is part of it, but not the only part of it....also as I said I cannot initiate social interaction, people have initiated interaction with me....a couple times it has ended in a relationship none of those lasted because i am still akward at intimacy. I also once thought I was this guys 'girlfriend' but it turns out he was just using me to have someone to have sex with.....I think I would have preferred just not interacting with them in the first place if I knew that is all they wanted is a f**k buddy or whatever. So yeah sometimes interacting with the oppisite sex isn't all its cut out to be.....Also I fail to see how having interacted with males and had relationships with them makes my life as a whole any 'easier' Its all a matter of opinion I suppose but even in that aspect of life its not like I have done all that well.

As for the actual topic of the thread, I am not good at blending in with neurotypical females...I suck at 'imitating' them and putting that to use in social interaction.


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23 Apr 2014, 10:28 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:



Yes that is part of it, but not the only part of it....also as I said I cannot initiate social interaction, people have initiated interaction with me....a couple times it has ended in a relationship none of those lasted because i am still akward at intimacy. I also once thought I was this guys 'girlfriend' but it turns out he was just using me to have someone to have sex with.....I think I would have preferred just not interacting with them in the first place if I knew that is all they wanted is a f**k buddy or whatever. So yeah sometimes interacting with the oppisite sex isn't all its cut out to be.....Also I fail to see how having interacted with males and had relationships with them makes my life as a whole any 'easier' Its all a matter of opinion I suppose but even in that aspect of life its not like I have done all that well.


where do you meet these guys? You at least have a social life
and your ''boyfriend''(who use you)how did you meet him



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23 Apr 2014, 10:33 pm

sweetleaf do you have a flirty personality around guys?
or did you just associate or hung around the wrong kind
of guys? How do these jerks find you?



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23 Apr 2014, 10:33 pm

billiscool wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:

isn't talking to guys social interaction? is dating social interaction?


Yes that is part of it, but not the only part of it....also as I said I cannot initiate social interaction, people have initiated interaction with me....a couple times it has ended in a relationship none of those lasted because i am still akward at intimacy. I also once thought I was this guys 'girlfriend' but it turns out he was just using me to have someone to have sex with.....I think I would have preferred just not interacting with them in the first place if I knew that is all they wanted is a f**k buddy or whatever. So yeah sometimes interacting with the oppisite sex isn't all its cut out to be.....Also I fail to see how having interacted with males and had relationships with them makes my life as a whole any 'easier' Its all a matter of opinion I suppose but even in that aspect of life its not like I have done all that well.


where do you meet these guys? You at least have a social life
and your ''boyfriend''(who use you)how did you meet him[/quote]

Well I've had a total of 4 very short relationships, including the one where the guy wasn't really wanting anything long term just something to f**k. I met that as*hole in college in person seemed like they where actually intrested in more than getting in my pants, then the first one was in highschool and two I met online at different times. I actually don't have much of a social life to speak of, I don't even have any friends a few acquantinces and one friend I never even see. But yes even with all that social interaction I constantly get, my life isn't what I'd call easy....for one I am stuck living on SSI because I cannot function well enough for work, stuck at my moms house dealing with her and her boyfriend constantly arguing because I cannot afford to move out and have no one else to move in with if it wasn't for my mom letting me stay in her house I'd be on the streets in homeless shelters. So as far as I can tell this social life of mine isn't making my life easier.


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23 Apr 2014, 10:36 pm

billiscool wrote:
sweetleaf do you have a flirty personality around guys?
or did you just associate or hung around the wrong kind
of guys? How do these jerks find you?


No I wouldn't even know how to flirt...the one that was a jerk just was not honest about his intentions, and I stupidly fell for it at the age of 19. As for the others it wasn't nessisarily hanging around the wrong type of anyone, just it ended up being akward so things ended because I suck at intimacy. If it wasn't for that maybe one of those relationships would have lasted, maybe not.....I couldn't say.


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23 Apr 2014, 11:01 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:

No I wouldn't even know how to flirt...the one that was a jerk just was not honest about his intentions, and I stupidly fell for it at the age of 19. As for the others it wasn't nessisarily hanging around the wrong type of anyone, just it ended up being akward so things ended because I suck at intimacy. If it wasn't for that maybe one of those relationships would have lasted, maybe not.....I couldn't say.


so what are you doing wrong compare to these ''popular''female
aspie who have no trouble in dating?

there has to be something these ''popular''female aspie are doing right
compare to the majority aspie females.



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23 Apr 2014, 11:06 pm

I wish I were a social chameleon and good at mimicking, but alas I am not. Whenever I try to improve my non-verbal communication, by making more eye-contact, standing closer to someone with whom I'm conversing, smiling or giving a firmer hand-shake, for example, I usually end up making it worse by going to an opposite extreme or doing something that just looks weird and creepy.

However, my special interests were more typical, they were in fiction and imagining/daydreaming. These interests were all-consuming, my lack of interest in other things was noted by an early professional that saw me and by my mum , and interfered with my functioning, in school, for example. So, they weren't the same as other girls' interests in reading fiction and imagining themselves as a character in scenes from the books, for example. They were different in degree and intensity but they were the same in type of interest. Nonetheless, I was identified and diagnosed relatively quickly. The DSM-IV-TR with PDDs( Asperger's and PDD-NOS) came out in 1994 and I was diagnosed in 1998 when I was just about to turn 14. The school had sent me to a psychiatrist specializing in anxiety disorders and she in turn referred my mum and I to a psychiatrist who specialized in PDDs during my first session with her.



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23 Apr 2014, 11:23 pm

foxfield wrote:
Acedia wrote:
I completely disagree, there should be no differences in how autism expresses itself in boys and girls. Are we really meant to be believe that autism expresses itself so differently in girls that it doesn't even look like autism?


Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm suspicious of that theory as well.


There may be some differences in how autism expresses itself in boys vs in girls but I don't think it looks so different that it doesn't look like autism at all in girls . I do think that some of the "lists of traits of girls on the spectrum " online, like those posted by Rudy Simone, are so inclusive that a lot of NT girls who are just a bit quirky, introverted or fidgety would fit them all. Therefore, I can see how some people might mistakenly think they themselves or a women they know might have ASD when they really just have some autistic-like traits and no disorder or maybe a different disorder with some overlapping features. I think there might be true differences in presentation but that the differences aren't as extreme as some might think.

Here are a couple examples of the types of lists I mean. link1link2



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23 Apr 2014, 11:26 pm

I don't really see the difference between boys and girls as far is AS, I can relate to many of the points ZombieBride wrote and many others I have read on the issue. The traits that are usually listed is female ASD traits really usually are general ASD traits.



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24 Apr 2014, 12:02 am

Acedia wrote:
I completely disagree, there should be no differences in how autism expresses itself in boys and girls. Are we really meant to be believe that autism expresses itself so differently in girls that it doesn't even look like autism?

This theory is fallacious, and doesn't even make sense. Why would girls be able to socialize better, is the female brain significantly different from the male brain? Also one aspect of autism is having a poor theory of mind, so imitating others should be difficult for all people with autism.


I agree that girls can get away with being shy, but shyness in itself is not an indicator of autism. I think there is over-diagnosis of boys - I think nerds are a group that have the potential to be wrongly diagnosed. However most of the arguments for under-diagnosis of girls rely on this dubious idea that girls have better social adaptation, and can pass better for NT.

So well that they are indistinguishable?

---


The core autism traits are the same how it presents is based on personality and can be very different. An extraverted male autistic may react to numerous failed attempts at relationships by behavior that would be interpreted as sexual harassment. The introverted autistic may react to numerous failures by giving up and being a 40 year virgin. Same core autistic traits wholly different reaction to them. If a the stereotypical male autistic uses his hyperfocus/attention to detail to memorize train schedules why could not the stereotypical female autistic use her hyperfocus/attention to detail to mimic well enough to pass as NT? Be it they are born that way or culture or both there is plenty of evidence of gender differences.
The theory is not exactly that the autism in females is being missed and not diagnosed but the autism is being misinterpreted and mis-diagnosed because most examples of how autism presents itself are based on studies and observation of boys


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24 Apr 2014, 12:16 am

I don't know any autistic girls, only boys.


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