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Sweetleaf
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03 Mar 2014, 11:45 am

Ca2MgFe5Si8O22OH2 wrote:
billiscool wrote:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/27/autism-girls-versus-boys/5862747/


some stuff:''There are about seven males with mild autism for every female, though the gender gap is much smaller at the more severe end of the spectrum.'''

''This finding, in a study of more than 16,000 people, confirms that autism is not simply being missed in females – it is actually occurring less often''


I strongly suspect that being socialized as female simply mitigates the negative effects of high functioning autism. if MAAB individuals were treated the same way FAAB individuals are treated, I suspect similar results would be seen.


I don't know about that....I was socialized as female and it did not mitigate the negative effects of my autism. Not sure what MAAB or FAAB individuals are.


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03 Mar 2014, 4:10 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IzAhBuJUh8[/youtube]Here ya go shell tell you like it is. I talked with her on Youtube shes a nice laid back person.


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Verdandi
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03 Mar 2014, 5:52 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
Ca2MgFe5Si8O22OH2 wrote:
billiscool wrote:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/27/autism-girls-versus-boys/5862747/


some stuff:''There are about seven males with mild autism for every female, though the gender gap is much smaller at the more severe end of the spectrum.'''

''This finding, in a study of more than 16,000 people, confirms that autism is not simply being missed in females – it is actually occurring less often''


I strongly suspect that being socialized as female simply mitigates the negative effects of high functioning autism. if MAAB individuals were treated the same way FAAB individuals are treated, I suspect similar results would be seen.


I don't know about that....I was socialized as female and it did not mitigate the negative effects of my autism. Not sure what MAAB or FAAB individuals are.


"Male assigned at birth" and "female assigned at birth."

Lots of people tend to give socialization based on birth assignment huge weight, but it is probably not nearly as influential as they want to believe.



Ca2MgFe5Si8O22OH2
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03 Mar 2014, 7:36 pm

daydreamer84 wrote:
^^^
Being treated differently wouldn't cause structural changes to a person's genome such as copy number variations (CNVs). Structural variation in genetics just doesn't work that way.
*Some genes can be turned on and off by environmental influences (mostly pre-natal) but that is not structural and is completely different from what they're discussing in the study.

Girls and boys being treated differently or autism being thought of as a boys disorder may contribute to a higher rate of diagnosis in boys than girls but this study shows that there are also some biological differences between boys vs girls with autism that probably accounts for at-least some of the differential rate of diagnosis.


I suspect that less extreme variation in girls doesn't result in diagnosis.


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daydreamer84
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03 Mar 2014, 8:31 pm

Ca2MgFe5Si8O22OH2 wrote:
daydreamer84 wrote:
^^^
Being treated differently wouldn't cause structural changes to a person's genome such as copy number variations (CNVs). Structural variation in genetics just doesn't work that way.
*Some genes can be turned on and off by environmental influences (mostly pre-natal) but that is not structural and is completely different from what they're discussing in the study.

Girls and boys being treated differently or autism being thought of as a boys disorder may contribute to a higher rate of diagnosis in boys than girls but this study shows that there are also some biological differences between boys vs girls with autism that probably accounts for at-least some of the differential rate of diagnosis.


I suspect that less extreme variation in girls doesn't result in diagnosis.


err....but the point is just that it takes more structural alternation of the genome of a girl than of a boy to produce the the same autism symptoms.



cyberdad
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04 Mar 2014, 12:30 am

daydreamer84 wrote:
"Girls tolerate neurodevelopmental mutations more than boys do. This is really what the study shows," said study author Sebastien Jacquemont, an assistant professor of genetic medicine at the University Hospital of Lausanne, in Switzerland.
\


All this depends on what "mild autism" actually means? Another thread with a similar title was started earlier this year and the general consensus was high functioning autism and/or Aspergers in females was being missed which explains the 7:1 ratio (other publications refer to a 4:1 ratio.). It's all very well for Sebastien Jacquemont to propose girls have a tolerance to nuerodevelopmental mutations but the explanations based on chromosomal differences are not particularly convincing.



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04 Mar 2014, 12:37 am

Lorna Wing thinks the ratio is closer to 1:2.



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04 Mar 2014, 5:30 am

Verdandi wrote:
Lorna Wing thinks the ratio is closer to 1:2.

That may be so, but it all depends on what criteria Lorna Wing (and others) are using to determine ASD function before they estimate gender ratios.



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04 Mar 2014, 6:34 am

cyberdad wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
Lorna Wing thinks the ratio is closer to 1:2.

That may be so, but it all depends on what criteria Lorna Wing (and others) are using to determine ASD function before they estimate gender ratios.


There's existing research that shows autistic girls and women are less likely to be taken seriously. There is commentary by professionals such as Tony Attwood who says that his adult diagnoses are much closer to evenly matched than child diagnoses. And there's commentary by one of the foremost experts on autism in the western world, who has been studying this stuff for decades, who introduced Hans Aspergers' work to the English-speaking world, and whose work got Asperger Syndrome recognized in the DSM-IV saying she thinks that the ratio is closer to 2:1.

It looks like the skepticism here is going exactly one way.



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04 Mar 2014, 6:52 am

Actually it seems reasonable for me, that woman might need more DNA variation, to get the same autistic result.

It is scientific approved, that the ability to sense other people emotions and that typical Butterfly/Theory of Mind stuff, is as well influenced by hormones. As example the famours Oxycotin. So giving Ocytoxin to people, caused them to be more aware of other peoples emotions, made them more sensible and group focused ...

Woman have in general a higher amount of that hormon, so it seems reasonable that more DNA-changes are needed to get them acting as autistic, as a male with lower Oxycotin levels.

Actually that makes me afraid for my little boy. If I am already told to be very deep in the spectrum, and I might have inherited the amount of DNA-damages to my young boy, I feel bothered about that. :( At least I always hoped, that any inherited autism, would not become worser then mine one. :( )



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04 Mar 2014, 12:30 pm

cyberdad wrote:
daydreamer84 wrote:
"Girls tolerate neurodevelopmental mutations more than boys do. This is really what the study shows," said study author Sebastien Jacquemont, an assistant professor of genetic medicine at the University Hospital of Lausanne, in Switzerland.
\


All this depends on what "mild autism" actually means? Another thread with a similar title was started earlier this year and the general consensus was high functioning autism and/or Aspergers in females was being missed which explains the 7:1 ratio (other publications refer to a 4:1 ratio.). It's all very well for Sebastien Jacquemont to propose girls have a tolerance to nuerodevelopmental mutations but the explanations based on chromosomal differences are not particularly convincing.


Actually, I don't think it does depend on how mild autism is defined. The articles about the study say that they took boys and girls displaying the same autistic symptoms. If this is the case and they took boys and girls with the exact same symptoms and saw that the boys had fewer chromosomal abnormalities than the girls than it only depends on symptoms and molecular genetics.

*Personally I think the higher diagnosis rate in boys is probably due to a mixture of social and biological/genetic factors. I'm not discounting that girls could present different symptoms of the same disorder and be missed in diagnosis but there's some good evidence for genetic differences predisposing boys to ASD and other developmental disorders too.



droppy
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04 Mar 2014, 1:51 pm

I have always thought that autism occurred more often in males than in females simply because of the genetics.
Female have chromosomes xx
Males have chromosomes xy
I found out that when the chromosome x is damaged in the male/there's an anomaly in the genetics they're more likely to develop the disorder associated with such anomaly than females because females have the other x chromosome that kinda "makes up" for the anomaly in the other one and therefore women are less likely to develop genetic disorders than males whose y chromosome can't "make up" for the anomaly.
Autism is genetic and I thought that the xy chromosomes were the cause of the higher rate of autistic boys than autistic girls because of what I have explained before.
But this doesn't explain why people that have a genetic disorder like Rett's are almost exclusively girls.

Anyway, I've seen articles around about the "female type" of Asperger's and it sound weird to me because every girl in my school who is not a "social butterfly" or is a little bit awkward/tomboyish fits those criteria and I highly doubt that any of them really have Asperger's.



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04 Mar 2014, 2:26 pm

Sex differences in genetics aren't always limited to the X chromosome or the Y. This article explains it with regard to the study we're discussing:

"The new research also reinforces that genetic differences -- or vulnerabilities -- aren't limited to sex chromosomes, Adesman added.

"The presumption has been, 'Well gee, boys have a Y chromosome and girls don't, so are there problems with the Y chromosome that explain it?'" Adesman noted.

"The bottom line is that there are a lot of different genetic abnormalities and atypicalities that result in developmental disorders in children and adults," Adesman explained. "Women seem to be a little more resilient in terms of being able to have minor abnormalities without having a developmental problem
."
From:LINKY



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04 Mar 2014, 6:03 pm

My personal opinion is that its probably a mixture of underdiagnosis of ASD in females and genetic factors such as a threshold number or or type of mutations. I wasn't officially diagnosed until I was nearly 48 and there are lots of women on this forum and outside this forum who similarly receive late diagnosis. Do I think that part of the reason for my late diagnosis could be attributed to gender bias? Absolutely. My mother actively kept me away from mental health professionals as a child, but school officials should definitely have picked up more on the profound social problems. Looking at my personality test results and life history a psychologist I saw when I was college age I think would have suspected had I been male. In the end I had to do the research and fit the puzzle pieces together and bring my case to my mental health professionals to obtain my diagnosis, even though I was already under treatment for major depression. Only then was it, "By Jove, that's the thing I couldn't quite put my finger on!"

However, my case tends to support rather than refute the contention that a greater degree of mutation or that other genetic aberrations might need to be present in a female. My ASD is associated with another neural tube defect that adversely affected my neurological as well as craniofacial development, Goldenhars (hemifacial microsomia). (The link between autism and Goldenhars didn't start to be explored until the early 90s.) However, I've never had a genetic workup that would identify the genes associated with either my ASD or my Goldenhars. My father had some Aspie-like traits and his father may well have as well. I do have some suspicions about one of my mother's late sisters who had some definite mental issues, but I am less sure of ASD on the maternal side and nowhere else is there Goldenhars, so I can't say where the mutations came from -- just that I likely do indeed have more genetic damage than many male Aspies.