AUTISM IN GIRLS: 5 REASONS WHY IT’S DIFFERENT

Some people, like me, become good at hiding their struggles and effective at mimicking normative social behavior. It’s sometimes referred to as ASD camouflage. We all make small adjustments to fit in better with our peers and to conform to social norms, but autism camouflage is a whole other level of adjusting. For me, it means a constant and elaborate effort. It allows me to live a somewhat normal life but it comes with a cost. I’m often physically exhausted, on edge, and anxious. I think that’s why it hurts when people tell me that I don’t look autistic. Even though that’s often what I’m going for it feels dismissive because they have no idea how much work goes into looking “normal” and fitting in.

Below are ways in which autism in different in girls and boys. Keep in mind that every single person on the autism spectrum is unique.

1 –  A lot of the tools used to diagnose autism come from studying boys. This is the case with what experts called “repetitive and restricted behaviors” like lining things up, fascination with spinning wheels or singular parts of objects, or obsessions with, for example, trains. Research now shows that girls have milder repetitive behaviors, or sometimes simply different ones.

2 – Boys tend to be more aggressive while girls are more withdrawn and passive. They may appear overly shy. This definitely applies to me, and it’s harder to know what’s going on pathologically when the person presents, simply, fewer outwardly observable behaviors.

3 – Girls with autism tend to have strong interests in things that are considered more mainstream like sport and music. My obsession was soccer. Boys may have strong interests that are a bit more out of the box.

4 – Girls are more likely to learn how to hide their symptoms. They’re better at copying social behavior to fit in. I’ve become pretty good at it. This is the autism camouflage I was referring to.

5 – Autistic girls are more likely than boys to functionally deal with anxiety and depressions. Another often invisible struggle though.

According to the most recent DSM-5, in order to receive an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis it’s now required that someone have some repetitive behaviors and obsessions. The less obvious nature of girls’ obsessions plus our ability to hide our symptoms better than boys are what I personally think the main reasons are why girls are diagnosed with autism less frequently than boys. There’s also a higher chance to stay undiagnosed when girls have an average or higher IQ. Unless girls are severely autistic and also have an intellectual disability then it’s likely they won’t be diagnosed until their teenage or adult years. My hope is that in the future there will be different autism scales used to diagnose autism in girls and boys, or some other metric to account for these inherent differences.