Board index › General Discussion › General Autism Discussion

Girls and autism

Page 1 of 1 [ 9 posts ] 

Previous topic | Next topic

firemonkey
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Mar 2015
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,850
Location: Calne,England

21 Jun 2015, 6:06 am

Most people tend to think of autism as a male disorder, the character in the film Rain Man often comes to mind. But emerging research shows that girls often have different symptoms which cause them to slip through the net—misdiagnosed or undiagnosed by clinicians. We look at why girls on the autism spectrum present differently, and whether these sex differences are biological or environmental.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/pro ... transcript


_________________
Socially drifted middle class


tetris
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Nov 2011
Age: 31
Gender: Female
Posts: 730
Location: Scotland

21 Jun 2015, 7:29 am

On the topic of this channel 4 had a show called born naughty, where they took two kids and assessed them to see whether they needed a diagnosis or not. The second episode had a little girl who ended up being diagnosed with asd and it's a pretty good example of the differences between girls and boys, the asd was only picked up by the salt and not the doctor, and it was little things that made her think she was autistic. Here's the link to the episode epsiode on youtube



BirdInFlight
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Jun 2013
Age: 64
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,501
Location: If not here, then where?

21 Jun 2015, 7:53 am

I watched Born Naughty and found it very interesting, yes!

I too noticed that the initial doctor would say things like "I'm not really seeing, say, autism" -- and later when they brought in the specialist, sure enough the actual specialist saw the autism and diagnosed it.

Just goes to show, non-specialist professionals can be wrong; it took the specialist to see it.

There was a girl called Honey who had some of the behaviors I had as a child. Within a few minutes I not only saw a lot of my past self in her, but I also called out loud "They're going to diagnose her with autism" - and they did.



tetris
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Nov 2011
Age: 31
Gender: Female
Posts: 730
Location: Scotland

21 Jun 2015, 8:06 am

BirdInFlight wrote:
I watched Born Naughty and found it very interesting, yes!

I too noticed that the initial doctor would say things like "I'm not really seeing, say, autism" -- and later when they brought in the specialist, sure enough the actual specialist saw the autism and diagnosed it.

Just goes to show, non-specialist professionals can be wrong; it took the specialist to see it.

There was a girl called Honey who had some of the behaviors I had as a child. Within a few minutes I not only saw a lot of my past self in her, but I also called out loud "They're going to diagnose her with autism" - and they did.


You could guess pretty quickly what they were going to diagnose them with. I also noticed how similar I am/was to the kids they diagnosed, and I also noticed things I hadn't realised. Like the last episode Charlie he didn't like getting told to do something but if he was getting told indirectly it was pretty much fine, I hadn't realised that was thing.



BirdInFlight
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Jun 2013
Age: 64
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,501
Location: If not here, then where?

21 Jun 2015, 8:10 am

tetris wrote:
You could guess pretty quickly what they were going to diagnose them with. I also noticed how similar I am/was to the kids they diagnosed, and I also noticed things I hadn't realised. Like the last episode Charlie he didn't like getting told to do something but if he was getting told indirectly it was pretty much fine, I hadn't realised that was thing.


Yes, it was really interesting to see them able to give guidance as to more productive ways to approach the child and cope with their behaviours as a result of having the diagnosis. It shows the very real way in which an early diagnosis is useful because everyone can find out better ways of coping.

Also of note was the way the initial GP type doctor didn't think it was autism at first, because, if I recall correctly, the child had imaginative play abilities and other things he thought could not co-exist with autism.



tetris
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Nov 2011
Age: 31
Gender: Female
Posts: 730
Location: Scotland

21 Jun 2015, 8:32 am

BirdInFlight wrote:
tetris wrote:
You could guess pretty quickly what they were going to diagnose them with. I also noticed how similar I am/was to the kids they diagnosed, and I also noticed things I hadn't realised. Like the last episode Charlie he didn't like getting told to do something but if he was getting told indirectly it was pretty much fine, I hadn't realised that was thing.


Yes, it was really interesting to see them able to give guidance as to more productive ways to approach the child and cope with their behaviours as a result of having the diagnosis. It shows the very real way in which an early diagnosis is useful because everyone can find out better ways of coping.

Also of note was the way the initial GP type doctor didn't think it was autism at first, because, if I recall correctly, the child had imaginative play abilities and other things he thought could not co-exist with autism.


I'm sure the imaginative play ended up being imaginative but not in the normal way (if you get what I mean) I can't remember how they termed it but it was a bit different to the average imaginative play.



iliketrees
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Mar 2013
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,155
Location: Earth

21 Jun 2015, 8:35 am

tetris wrote:
BirdInFlight wrote:
tetris wrote:
You could guess pretty quickly what they were going to diagnose them with. I also noticed how similar I am/was to the kids they diagnosed, and I also noticed things I hadn't realised. Like the last episode Charlie he didn't like getting told to do something but if he was getting told indirectly it was pretty much fine, I hadn't realised that was thing.


Yes, it was really interesting to see them able to give guidance as to more productive ways to approach the child and cope with their behaviours as a result of having the diagnosis. It shows the very real way in which an early diagnosis is useful because everyone can find out better ways of coping.

Also of note was the way the initial GP type doctor didn't think it was autism at first, because, if I recall correctly, the child had imaginative play abilities and other things he thought could not co-exist with autism.


I'm sure the imaginative play ended up being imaginative but not in the normal way (if you get what I mean) I can't remember how they termed it but it was a bit different to the average imaginative play.

I watched the episode. She did imaginative play but only ones she had been taught. She was unable to stretch it. It was just repetition of actions she had been shown to do and didn't respond to being asked to do something. I don't know if they ever called it anything specific.



tetris
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Nov 2011
Age: 31
Gender: Female
Posts: 730
Location: Scotland

21 Jun 2015, 11:18 am

iliketrees wrote:
tetris wrote:
BirdInFlight wrote:
tetris wrote:
You could guess pretty quickly what they were going to diagnose them with. I also noticed how similar I am/was to the kids they diagnosed, and I also noticed things I hadn't realised. Like the last episode Charlie he didn't like getting told to do something but if he was getting told indirectly it was pretty much fine, I hadn't realised that was thing.


Yes, it was really interesting to see them able to give guidance as to more productive ways to approach the child and cope with their behaviours as a result of having the diagnosis. It shows the very real way in which an early diagnosis is useful because everyone can find out better ways of coping.

Also of note was the way the initial GP type doctor didn't think it was autism at first, because, if I recall correctly, the child had imaginative play abilities and other things he thought could not co-exist with autism.


I'm sure the imaginative play ended up being imaginative but not in the normal way (if you get what I mean) I can't remember how they termed it but it was a bit different to the average imaginative play.

I watched the episode. She did imaginative play but only ones she had been taught. She was unable to stretch it. It was just repetition of actions she had been shown to do and didn't respond to being asked to do something. I don't know if they ever called it anything specific.


It might have been another episode where they called it something, I can't quite remember.

But I really liked the show, I wish it had had more than 4 episodes.



iliketrees
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Mar 2013
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,155
Location: Earth

21 Jun 2015, 11:27 am

tetris wrote:
iliketrees wrote:
tetris wrote:
BirdInFlight wrote:
tetris wrote:
You could guess pretty quickly what they were going to diagnose them with. I also noticed how similar I am/was to the kids they diagnosed, and I also noticed things I hadn't realised. Like the last episode Charlie he didn't like getting told to do something but if he was getting told indirectly it was pretty much fine, I hadn't realised that was thing.


Yes, it was really interesting to see them able to give guidance as to more productive ways to approach the child and cope with their behaviours as a result of having the diagnosis. It shows the very real way in which an early diagnosis is useful because everyone can find out better ways of coping.

Also of note was the way the initial GP type doctor didn't think it was autism at first, because, if I recall correctly, the child had imaginative play abilities and other things he thought could not co-exist with autism.


I'm sure the imaginative play ended up being imaginative but not in the normal way (if you get what I mean) I can't remember how they termed it but it was a bit different to the average imaginative play.

I watched the episode. She did imaginative play but only ones she had been taught. She was unable to stretch it. It was just repetition of actions she had been shown to do and didn't respond to being asked to do something. I don't know if they ever called it anything specific.


It might have been another episode where they called it something, I can't quite remember.

But I really liked the show, I wish it had had more than 4 episodes.

Yeah, I watched the 4 episodes. Hopefully there's more to come. Pretty interesting show.

One thing I learned from the show is PDA - pathological demand avoidance. I'd never heard of that before but they had 2 kids on there with it. It's a type of autism and yet so different.