Why autism is different for girls

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autism is not really different for girls the only differences are social stereo types and social conditioning.

females have just been underdiagnosed in comparison to males

I don't think it's really all that different fro girls.

IIRC, the general cons nsus is the underlying condition is the same, however girls typically end up recieving more social training in general, thus hide the condition more.

Boys get disruptive, girls get depressed. Boys get diagnosed with autism, girls get diagnosed with anorexia/depression/borderline personality disorder.

According to the data in a paper I read recently,

1. Autism and asperger's are less frequent in females than in males, perhaps because the female average is farther from the autistic end of the spectrum than is the male average.

2. For women who do have aspergers or autism, it isn't any different from the men who have it; it's just that such women are less common.

Unfortunately I can't link the paper because I'm a newbie and can't post links yet.

The presentation of AS women is very different from that of males. And another poster is right. They usually get misdiagnosed as having borderline personality disorder or another condition.

I went to a comference in Boston about aspergers headed by Tony Attwood last year. He said fewer women get diagnosed with AS because we are better mimickers/actors, thus better at hiding our disorder. In his exstimation there are probably just as many women out there with AS as there are men, just most of them go undiagnosed, or misdiagnosed. Its a shame really, because there are few diagnosed women there aren't too many books out there about women with AS.

The article talks like it should be a hage shock if any girl has autism. It's rarer, but that's not true...

ALso, I think the article was written in a slightly uninformed tone. They mention "High functioning Aspergers"

I keep hearing "misdiagnosis". But HOW? how are females misdiagnosed?

Funny, they were having a story about this on the BBC World Service just as I got home. Wanted to hear the rest of it, but I got put to work bringing in groceries...

Has anyone every noticed how the interviewees always seem to echo the questions word for word?

If AS is a genetic type rather than a "disease" females will present differently from males. After all, neuro-typical males and females are different from each other. In his 1944 paper Hans Asperger described the mother of one of his patients, Fritz V, as being similar to the boy, and remarks that this is particularly striking because one would expect women to be more socially adapted. If the professionals don't expect to find female Aspies it's no wonder that they're not finding us! Instead, they try to force us to believe falsely that we suffered childhood abuse, and other fantasies of their own making.

*raises hand* - I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I didn't have a clue what Asperger's was until we figured out my son had it, then realized I have it too. And probably not borderline...