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Aspergers and girls

Monkey12 Comments

Aspergers is an Autism Spectrum Disorder. It is generally thought to affect far more boys than girls. However, a leading expert on such disorders, Dr. Judith Gould, argues that many girls with Aspergers are not diagnosed. According to Gould, this is because the criteria for diagnosis are based on the ways in which boys manifest the disease, and girls’ symptoms are different. Undiagnosed Aspergers can make life miserable, leading to extremely low self-esteem. It may play a role in anorexia and self-harm in some cases. Here is the Guardian article.

12 thoughts on “Aspergers and girls”

  3. This is really interesting: I’d love to know in more detail what the differences in manifestation tend to be. I wonder what the relevance is for Simon Baron-Cohen’s ‘extreme male brain’ theory of autism?

    I imagine there’s also a relationship with the (suspected) under-identification of girls with ADHD, which makes me think there’s a general issue about gender and neurodiversity.

  4. Here’s an article about the difference; it also suggests that girls are way underdiagnosed. If you click around on the site, you can get some information about the author. I googled “girls aspergers” and go a lot of sites.

  6. Thanks, Monkey. I’m not sure its news, because one would think one could have figured it out.

  9. I know all about the depression and low self esteem. i consider adolecance to be “my period of momentary insanity.” I blog about what I go through and my aspirations on keeping it a secret. People should see me for who I am an not as a disabled person. I hope you find this interesting.

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