How come there are so many books about Asperger's and Girls?

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ImAnAspie
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12 Aug 2016, 4:58 pm

How come there are so many books written by women about Asperger's and Girls/women?

1 ) Asperger's and Girls
2 ) I am AspienWoman: The Unique Characteristics, Traits, and Gifts of Adult Females on the Autism Spectrum
3 ) Aspergirls: Empowering Females with Asperger Syndrome
4 ) Safety Skills for Asperger Women: How to Save a Perfectly Good Female Life
5 ) 22 Things a Woman with Asperger's Syndrome Wants Her Partner to Know
6 ) I am Aspiengirl: The Unique Characteristics, Traits and Gifts of Females on the Autism Spectrum
7 ) Women and Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Understanding Life Experiences from Early Childhood to Old Age
8 ) Six-Word Lessons on Female Asperger Syndrome: 100 Lessons to Understand and Support Girls and Women with Asperger's

and practically nothing on men accept books written for women on how to love Aspie men?

Why do women feel the need to write so much about females with Asperger's, and men don't?

What are your views?


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12 Aug 2016, 5:11 pm

I expect part of the reason is because there is a growing consensus that girls with autism have been overlooked and under treated by the medical establishment. Also because there is a demand for the books and they are selling.



BirdInFlight
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12 Aug 2016, 5:12 pm

This is something to complain about? Because it sounds like a complaint. Are you kidding me? It's about bloody TIME there was more out there about Asperger's and females. Are you kidding me?



kraftiekortie
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12 Aug 2016, 5:15 pm

It's obvious that Asperger's Syndrome/HFA/Level One Autism is under-reported in females--to the point where there's about a 4-1 ratio in incidence in favor of men.

As reflected in the membership here in WrongPlanet, there's certainly NOT 4 times as many men as there are women here.



Last edited by kraftiekortie on 12 Aug 2016, 5:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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12 Aug 2016, 5:16 pm

ImAnAspie wrote:
How come there are so many books written by women about Asperger's and Girls/women ... and practically nothing on men accept books written for women on how to love Aspie men?
You seem to be looking in the "Pop Psychology" section, instead of the pages of a peer-review journal.
ImAnAspie wrote:
Why do women feel the need to write so much about females with Asperger's, and men don't?
Why do women feel the need to write so much about females with Asperger's, and not about men with Asperger's?
ImAnAspie wrote:
What are your views?
[opinion=mine]

Women write to express themselves. Writing self-help books, religious study guides, romance novels, et cetera, are ways of expressing their feelings without resorting to rambling emo freeverse ( :eew: ).

Men write to report and give direction. Thus, you are likely to find more clinical research papers on Asperger's Syndrome that have been written by men.

[/opinion]

Of course, I'm expressing my own stereotypical views, so keep that in mind. You would be better off to read articles on the NIMH website about some of the research being done on ASDs, instead of grabbing the shiniest paperbacks off the bookstore shelves.

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RetroGamer87
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12 Aug 2016, 5:30 pm

Probably because there are thousands of books about Asperger's and if even a tenth of them are about girls, that would still be hundreds of books.

The rest of them are mostly about boys. Even if they have a gender-neutral title, they're still mostly about boys.

I'd like to know how come there are so many books about kids with aspergers. The majority of them are about kids and parenting and are of no help to adult aspies. Remember we spend about three quarters of our lives as adults. About three quarters of the population is adult.


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BirdInFlight
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12 Aug 2016, 5:34 pm

Quote:
resorting to rambling emo freeverse
Uh, like no male on earth has ever "resorted to rambling emo freeverse". Nice sexism there. If you don't like that when you run across then don't read it.



League_Girl
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12 Aug 2016, 5:49 pm

Because autism is different in females than in males. Most stuff you read about autism is mostly about males and so many females would fly under the radar and be diagnosed with other conditions instead like BPD, anxiety, depression, Bipolar.

I think this is more about awareness and about how different autism is in girls.

One thing I have on my mind is I wonder how many autism girls failed autism tests and actually passed as normal on them so the doctor said they didn't have autism?


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12 Aug 2016, 9:01 pm

I was diagnosed at 10, and no misdiagnosis or co morbidity. Am I lucky or unlucky?

Or is it because, unlike most female aspies, I don't pretend to be sociable or appropriate to begin with? Hence I didn't flew under the radar.
Instead of acting 4 to 8 hours a day as a part of my everyday life, I ended up with hate, anger and frustration towards conformity instead of some odd anxiety-induced motivation to 'fit in' with a persona whose sole purpose is to please the NTs? Sorry if this offends anyone...

Ended up with fulfillments of social 'wants', that I conclude that it's something I don't actually want?
And the lack of clumsiness and more physical prowess is just a bonus. :lol:


I really wanna know if I'm not the only one... :( I saw articles and some book previews, that ends up my question. Only a few traits that fits my description on what describes a female aspie. And cultures aside, I could barely relate to any of them.
But then again, it's a spectrum. :lol:


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naturalplastic
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12 Aug 2016, 9:34 pm

League_Girl wrote:
Because autism is different in females than in males. Most stuff you read about autism is mostly about males and so many females would fly under the radar and be diagnosed with other conditions instead like BPD, anxiety, depression, Bipolar.

I think this is more about awareness and about how different autism is in girls.

One thing I have on my mind is I wonder how many autism girls failed autism tests and actually passed as normal on them so the doctor said they didn't have autism?


This.

in the previous generation NO book would have been labeled on the dust cover as being about "asperger in boys"(as distinct from girls) even though ALL of the books were actually just about boys. It was considered a virtually all male condition.

More girl aspies are being discovered now because the condition presents differently in girls. So there is a big need both to reddress the imbalance in the number of books, and too address the difference in the same condition in the two genders.



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12 Aug 2016, 11:59 pm

There's a great demand for that type of literature.


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League_Girl
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13 Aug 2016, 12:23 am

Edna3362 wrote:
I was diagnosed at 10, and no misdiagnosis or co morbidity. Am I lucky or unlucky?

Or is it because, unlike most female aspies, I don't pretend to be sociable or appropriate to begin with? Hence I didn't flew under the radar.
Instead of acting 4 to 8 hours a day as a part of my everyday life, I ended up with hate, anger and frustration towards conformity instead of some odd anxiety-induced motivation to 'fit in' with a persona whose sole purpose is to please the NTs? Sorry if this offends anyone...

Ended up with fulfillments of social 'wants', that I conclude that it's something I don't actually want?
And the lack of clumsiness and more physical prowess is just a bonus. :lol:


I really wanna know if I'm not the only one... :( I saw articles and some book previews, that ends up my question. Only a few traits that fits my description on what describes a female aspie. And cultures aside, I could barely relate to any of them.
But then again, it's a spectrum. :lol:



You probably showed the boy traits. Girls were still diagnosed with autism then too but not as many as boys were.

Also I don't show all traits of female AS. I was never academically above average, I in fact had academic issues in school and made average grades. I had help through school with my school work. Spanish was about the only class I was able to do without help and art. I did choir too on my own because all you do is sing. And I don't have a above average IQ. These were listed as female AS but I see anyone can fit this. I only fit some of the symptoms for female AS and lot of it just looks like it's made up by individuals with it. Only thing I can relate to is the anxiety, the need to be clean, being social and outgoing, having an imagination, trying to fit in and be normal, trying to figure out the rules, wanting to please people, being sensitive, being emotional and expressive, talking about feelings, better at emotions and body language (yeah I read simple body language and knew about feelings in pictures and how the characters felt), I can't remember what else that was listed as female AS that also fit me. Oh I did pretend play and was never obsessed with objects and fixated on them. I also did nervous habits that might have been my stims. I did stuff like play with my hair and lips and ears but I was never nervous. I did them all the time no matter how much my mom stopped me. I never hand flapped or made funny sounds or rock hours of the day or spin stuff hours of the day. Because I didn't show many symptoms, I was only seen as having autistic like behavior with a language disorder.

I was also diagnosed as having anxiety and my anxiety is what got me the Asperger's diagnoses. My mom also says I have always been more sensitive. Yeah that sounds familiar to what I have read about female AS. I have learned to toughen up so I am not as upset anymore and things don't bother me as much like they used to. I can remember the days of forcing myself to be sociable because I wanted to be normal and copying others to try and be normal and trying to figure out the social rules. I also read girls with AS are better at using them. But one thing I can't relate to about it is the exhaustion so it makes me wonder if I am even truly on the spectrum and I was just weird and a social idiot (someone who just didn't know the rules so they were just naive) with autistic like behavior. Or am I just taking the word exhausted too literal because I think it means being tired they have to go to bed and sleep. I don't force myself to socialize, I only do it when I want to and then I leave so maybe that's why. Plus I don't try to please people anymore so some AS female traits I have outgrown. But then again it's a spectrum.


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13 Aug 2016, 9:26 am

Up until recently, unless you were REALLY low functioning, girls almost never got diagnosed with Aspergers because it was viewed as mostly a male issue.

My daughter's friend only was diagnosed at age 11. Why? It wasn't until her sensory issues and meltdowns became such a PITA for everyone else, that they decide to look into it.

Before her friend was diagnosed with allergies, anxiety, OCD, and ODD. All of those diagnosis were replaced with ASD.

Also it is more socially acceptable for a woman to be...

Overly sensitive to things that you touch, taste or smell

Collections. .that sort of burns out with boys around age 12. Girls can collect all sorts of stuff and no one bats an eye.

Being socially ditzy. I think women get a bigger pass on a social mistake made, and can smooth it over better.

Meltdowns...a woman can have a full bore screaming melt down (with reason), and people passing off as hormonal.

I don't have an issue with the books, because ASD was so over looked in women.



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13 Aug 2016, 9:37 am

Because females with autism are so much more interesting and complicated than us socially inept autistic males.

It's probably something to do with the legions of autism moms and selling books.



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14 Aug 2016, 10:54 am

A father on the parent board posted this YouTube link

https://youtu.be/WPd_ixQSo7s

It a documentary about girls with autism.

Girls do present differently. Had those girls lived around my area, those behaviors would be labeled ODD, OCD, ADHD, GAD and SocAD. Because they seem sort of "chatty" and can make friends (whatever that means), Autism wouldn't ever be considered.

The thing is NT teen girls do obsess over stuff. They can be moody, weepy and little drama queens sometimes. The problem is the specialist will just see the above and punt it to mental health. If you look just a little more closely, all those behaviors and issues are pure ASD related.

I really did enjoy the video, and it is an eye opener how different it autism is in girls.

A question for people in the UK, would the school be private pay or funding by the government? In the states, that place would most likely be private pay and only the six figure income plus types could afford it.



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14 Aug 2016, 2:52 pm

Because supposedly, it is soooo hard for us ladies to get a diagnosis. I just went to the psychiatrist and said I can't relate to most people, especially other women. He then asked me if I have another gender identity and I said that I feel comfortable with being myself. He then inquired me if I wanna do testing for autism. I said sure and then got diagnosed a couple weeks later.