Theories on why more males than females have AS

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Are females more social? So tend to show up less because it doesn't show up.

Any theories??? Out there I would love to know.

???

Personally, I like my logic in this case:

Autism is accurately diagnosed early in nearly all cases due to its verbal impairment, and the ratio of autism is 4/5 to 1 of males to females. Now, if Asperger's is seen as autism but without the verbal impairment, then the ratio should logically transpose over the one for autism, and 5 to 1 seems to be a figure thrown around a lot for Asperger's.

The high ratios of 13 to 1 and so on are probably in areas where there's a cluster of such, or the females are misdiagnosed in the areas where those studies are done.

Professor Attwood states that perhaps females are likely to be misdiagnosed during the school years due to being more passive, internalizing their anger rather than showing it to the world and causing disruption in class. This is obviously going by his clinical experience, and he sees many individuals with these disorders; perhaps this is the case in the high ratios that break the 4/5 to 1 of autism.

I've heard it said that Asperger's is simply an extremely male personality...

I read a lot about how AS girls are quiet and get misread as the result. But that is only some of the girls.

I think some girls who have AS are viewed as causing trouble on purpose and so are seen as anti-authority and anti-social rather than AS or autistic.

Other girls may be misread as having psychiatric conditions, especially if they have meltdowns at school.

So I think that AS is not recognised as often in girls as the characteristics are often misinterpreted in many ways.

I think it actually is more common in males though, statistically. I think autism genes are more likely to cause an autistic or AS phenotype in boys. But I dont know much about it.

Being serious, I couldn't say. I'm a girl, but I fit the asperger's stereotype down to a tee - every little thing it'll say about it in the textbooks was me - so in my case, it wasn't that I was more social or communicative or whatever than anyone else on the spectrum. Sure, I'd try to be social, but it tended to flop so badly that I adopted a corner where I'd sit by myself and read all through every lunch hour on my own.

I guess perhaps it's that girls are often more talkative and empathetic than boys, as a gender-specific generalisation, and that perhaps that comes through in aspergian girls too, so they don't get it picked up as obviously in milder cases as much as boys would?

I was going through some old school stuff clearing it out the other day though, and found a piece of paper that was basically a survey on how you learn best. My school was big on 'learning styles that benefit the individual student' and not having everyone sitting up in the fluoro lights listening to a teacher etc. My survey, as I'd filled it out as a ten year old, could have been a perfect profile of an aspie kid... prefers learning on own, hates distractions, strongly prefers visual learning over anything else, etc etc (it went on a while) - yet none of my teachers picked it up at the time. I gave the piece of paper to my mother who took it to her work (she works with autistic kids around the region) and they've decided to do some seminars with teachers to highlight the fact that those sorts of sheets could be a really good early indicator of kids on the spectrum. Looking at my answers I'm stunned nobody picked it up by looking at it!!

Isn't the 4:1 ratio only for those who are formally diagnosed? Could it be that for some unknown reason, many females simply evade the diagnosis radar?

Also, not all Aspies have it to the same extent. The level of functioning varies by individual--and this goes for both genders.

It could be biological.

When you go to see a psychiatrist for the first time, they do a screening session which lasts about 90 minutes. They can't screen for everything, so they check for the conditions that are most common in the population that the patient represents. They always check for common conditions such as depression and anxiety. They screen female patients for eating disorders, and they probably screen male patients for antisocial personality disorder and maybe AS.

I suspect that a lot of females (especially adults) are just not screened for ASDs. I know I never have been. However, characteristics of AS can resemble other conditions.

So if I go to see a psychiatrist, she'll probably go through the DX criteria for depression, anxiety disorders, OCD, ADHD, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. These questions would probably reveal some AS traits, but they would appear in the context of another condition. So I would probably get a diagnosis of Social Anxiety Disorder, Major Depression, and maybe OCD. She would write me a prescription, and future appointments would be dedicated to discussing how the medication was affecting me. The idea that I might have something she had not screened for would never come up unless I brought it up intentionally.

Just FYI and all, every psychiatrist I've seen never screened me for anything, and I've seen a lot.

I'm sure they noted things, but they never asked me questions that were related to any specific disorder: they wanted to see my answers to their open ended questions.

It probably is (Oz here). In fact, all of my psychic visits, the first ones that is, were "weird"; I kinda told them what I had, and they agreed with me each time. I must have one of those persuasive voices.

I got screened too first, but that was only done by one psychiatrist who then immediately disposed me into the personality disorder-category.


How much is Rett's related to autism? The majority of those with Rett's are female, that's why I'm asking.

For once, Rett's is placed with autism under pdds because there is/can be a regression. There can be regression in autistic people too, boys too.

How many of those with autism may have Fragile-X? (The majority of those with Fragile-X are male.)

There are likely several reasons why a) fewer females are diagnosed and b) why fewer females may actually have it.