Is Asperger's Really More Common in Boys than Girls?

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Irulan
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02 Jan 2008, 11:08 am

I'd support a thesis that there's still a smaller (not small but smaller) number of girls in comparison with general ammount of boys having it. And it's true that a lot of those girls are never diagnosed, mostly because AS usually shows in them in another way than in their male counterparts. A girl must be affected more to be recognised - that girl or woman who represents mild or moderate case of AS is almost undetectable, at least for those who are not specialists. Parents of such a girl, looking for explanations of their little daughter's quirks, even having found out that such a thing like Asperger Syndrome exists, usually chase their suspitions away because they come to a conclusion that even despite sharing some similarities, their daughter doesn't fit typical descriptions. Personally, I was caught in this trap too so I'm talking from the perspective of my own experience now because all those cases of AS I read about in the beginning of my path were much more serious; those kids were borderline autistic while I, even being somewhere in the middle of AS spectrum as I'm able to judge it now, I'm perceptibly closer to the normal than to the autistic. A stereotypical image of Asperger Syndrome became too deeply rooted in people's consciousness.



Orwell
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02 Jan 2008, 11:35 am

IdahoAspie wrote:
I personally think that the number of boys and girls with Asperger's is the same. I just believe that in boys it is more disruptive and noticable. Boys tend to more aggressive and so the traits get more attention from educators.

Also, Autism tends to magnify male traits. A woman acting more male is OK and considered acceptable in today's society. A male acting more male is further out of the normal behavior spectrum of behavior and sticks out more.

Am I alone in this belief?


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Idaho Aspie
www.AllThingsAspergers.com


There are no good epidemiological counts for Asperger's, so we can't know for sure. Estimates for the prevalence of Asperger's vary so widely as to destroy the credibility of any of them. I have seen estimates from 0.003% to 0.5%- one estimate is more than 160 times as high as the other! Before we question male-female ratio, we first need to find out how many actually are aspie, and to do that we need to figure how to accurately and consistently diagnose it.


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