{"id":344711,"date":"2025-01-21T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/why-are-autistic-girls-and-women-under-diagnosed\/"},"modified":"2025-01-21T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T09:00:00","slug":"why-are-autistic-girls-and-women-under-diagnosed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/why-are-autistic-girls-and-women-under-diagnosed\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are autistic girls and women under-diagnosed?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much like Attention Deficit Disorder with or without Hyperactivity (ADHD)<\/a>, autistic girls and women are under-diagnosed. Better able to hide their social difficulties<\/strong>, they tend to fly under the radar more easily. Not to mention the fact that Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has historically been framed as a male disorder… Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n

Less obvious signs of autism in women<\/h2>\n

It is commonly observed that autistic people, whether men or women, copy other people\u2019s social codes to fit in better<\/strong>. But a recent study published in the journal \u00abAutism\u00bb revealed that autistic women were more likely to mask their social difficulties than autistic men.<\/p>\n

\u00ab In its most complex form, <\/em>[social camouflaging] involves adopting a persona<\/strong>. For women in particular, this can mean watching other women who seem popular<\/strong>, and copying their body language or clothing<\/em> \u00bb, explained Dr Will Mandy, co-author of the study[1]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00ab We find that the autistic traits of many girls aren\u2019t noticed or recognised in the same way as the autistic traits of boys at school. And that\u2019s because the same mould is used to <\/strong><\/em>diagnose boys and girls<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,<\/em><\/strong> even though their autism often doesn\u2019t rest on the same criteria \u00bb<\/em>, said Hannah Hayward, a researcher in female autism at King\u2019s College London.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

The pitfalls of gendered medicine<\/h2>\n

According to the ICD-10 (the WHO\u2019s International Classification of Diseases), the sex ratio shows that 3 to 4 autistic men are diagnosed for every one autistic woman<\/strong>. But \u00ab it\u2019s important to remember that prevalence rates and diagnosis rates are two different things \u00bb<\/em>, points out Muriel, a senior lecturer specialising in the history of women, gender and medicine at Lyon 1 University[2]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Clinically, the way autism functions and presents is identical<\/strong> regardless of a person\u2019s sex. \u00ab However, it can show up differently<\/strong> in women and men, notably because of social conditioning, each person\u2019s unique identity and their stage of life \u00bb<\/em>, explains Magali, co-founder of an association for autistic people advocating for responsible and innovative self-determination.2<\/sup><\/p>\n

Historically, it should be noted that ASD was framed as a male disorder<\/strong>: the first studies on the subject, in 1943-1944, concerned almost exclusively boys. It wasn\u2019t until the 2000s that research on autistic women began to appear.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These studies call on doctors to be more attentive and to better diagnose autism in women<\/strong>, ideally as early as possible. If in doubt, parents are encouraged to make an appointment and get an initial assessment with a speech and language therapist<\/a>, which can then be complemented by other specialists (psychologists, paediatric neurologists, etc.).<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Sources: https:\/\/www.santemagazine.fr\/actualites\/actualites-sante\/autisme-pourquoi-les-femmes-sont-sous-diagnostiquees-426931<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Sources: https:\/\/centre-imind.fr\/femmes-autistes\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much like Attention Deficit Disorder with or without Hyperactivity (ADHD), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":344712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[339],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speech-therapy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}