Autism in men and women: is there a difference?

Despite the fact that the symptoms of autism were recorded centuries ago, and a little more than a century ago an official diagnosis appeared, this disorder has not yet been fully studied. There are still more questions than answers. For example, how races manifests itself in men and women. Collected the results of recent studies for you.

In boys, an autistic spectrum disorder (races) is more often diagnosed

For men and boys, such a diagnosis is made about four times more often than girls and women. Researchers explain this differently. Some believe that the reason is only in the features of diagnosis. Others believe that men are really more prone to these disorders than women.

Differences in the development of motor and communicative skills

In one study, scientists studied gender differences in the manifestation of symptoms of autism and the development of autistic children. Researchers observed children with a diagnosis of races aged 17 to 37 months.

It turned out that the severity of the symptoms as a whole does not depend on the gender, but in girls, compared to boys, disturbances in motor skills and less violations of communicative skills are more expressed.

Influence IQ

Among patients with a diagnosis of races and a high intelligence coefficient (IQ) less women. Perhaps the fact is that high intelligence allows autistic women to develop effective behavior strategies that allow you to better adapt to life and hide the symptoms more efficiently, which is why they are not diagnosed with races.

Even among patients with medium intelligence, women are often more successful in social interaction. Perhaps the reason is that they can better imitate others and thus acquire social skills, even if these skills do not develop on their own.

Limited interests and repeated actions

According to one of the theories, girls and races are less characterized by limited interests and repeated actions. According to another theory, these symptoms simply appear differently.

Perhaps others simply do not pay attention to the repeated actions of autistic girls, since they do not go far beyond socially acceptable behavior. For example, a girl with races can “take up” the skin around her nails or constantly scratch.

Sometimes autistic girls and women follow certain rituals – for example, make up a huge number of lists or observe a strictly defined schedule.

If the girl, playing, builds objects in a certain order, but from the outside it seems that she plays with dolls in role -playing games, others may not see anything unusual, although this may be very different from the behavior of her peers. In fact, she simply builds dolls in the ranks or certain figures, and does not play the roles with them.

If a girl or a woman has a limited circle of interests, but these interests are considered acceptable, they may not be considered symptoms of races. For example, if a woman is actively interested in psychology and self -help books,

those around him may not see anything strange in this, despite the fact that she has no other interests.

Limited interests and repeated actions usually appear more clearly and sharply in men with races, and similar symptoms in women often go unnoticed for a long time, and it happens that for years they cannot get the correct diagnosis and the necessary support and therapy.