A few weeks ago, I was able to have the pleasure of being in the audience of a presentation by one of the researchers from a recent study titled “Neural correlates of face processing among preschoolers with fragile X syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, autism siblings, and typical development” (Richards et al., 2023). During the talk, I was struck by how young the children were when undergoing this study, where some were first studied as infants, and the average age was around 5 years old. This then made me wonder about how prominent diagnoses were for young children, considering that a majority of the subjects in the study were boys.
The discussion portion noted that “An elegant design would be to include equal numbers of males and females…However, the proportion of males is so large in ASD…this would require a special sampling strategy to identify affected females” (Richards et al., 2023). If they would require an entirely different sampling strategy to ensure an equal sampling size, what exactly is hindering that process from finding eligible girls?
Recently, diagnoses for autism in children have been tremendously increasing, thanks to studies providing insight into what autism might look like and, behaviorally, what to look out for. According to the DSM-5, generally, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by an impairment of social interactions and restricted or repetitive behaviors. Generally speaking, ASD is extremely behavior-based and may not be diagnosed until the early developmental stage (or even later).
However, it turns out that the ratio of boys diagnosed with ASD vs girls is 4:1, with recent research suggesting that the reason girls are less likely to get diagnosed is due to “camouflaging.” This phenomenon is defined as “a discrepancy between seemingly atypical, internalised social/cognitive abilities and seemingly neurotypical, externalised behaviours” (Halsall et al., 2021). In layman’s terms, girls are more likely to mirror their peers to fit into normal social expectations. So, not only is ASD difficult to diagnose in young children, but young girls are even less likely to receive an autism diagnosis due to expressing ostensibly neurotypical behaviors because of camouflaging.
In a different study conducted by Harrop et al., in the span between the years 2000 and 2021, girls were consistently diagnosed at a later age of around 10 years old versus 8 years old in boys. The percentage of late diagnoses of 13 years and older in women was 20.9% versus men’s 14.1%.
This knowledge only spurs my passion to make women’s research prevalent and accessible, so women are not missing out on resources that could be used to help them!
WORKS CITED
Halsall, J., Clarke, C., & Crane, L. (2021). “camouflaging” by adolescent autistic girls who attend both mainstream and specialist resource classes: Perspectives of girls, their mothers and their educators. Autism, 25(7), 2074–2086. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613211012819
Harrop, C., Tomaszewski, B., Putnam, O., Klein, C., Lamarche, E., & Klinger, L. (2024). Are the diagnostic rates of autistic females increasing? an examination of state‐wide trends. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 65(7), 973–983. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13939
Richards, J. E., Guy, M. W., Hogan, A. L., & Roberts, J. E. (2023). Neural correlates of face processing among preschoolers with fragile X syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, autism siblings, and typical development. Autism Research, 17(1), 89–108. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.3045
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