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The Self in Girls and Women with Autism Spectrum Disorder
“Know thyself” - Socrates A central focus in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) research and clinical practice are core challenges in social reciprocity and social interaction - the interpersonal. The self in ASD - the intrapersonal - has been paid relatively little attention. This article...
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What Happened to All the Females with Autism Spectrum Disorders?
The concept of an autistic disorder is generally accepted to have originated with Leo Kanner and his classic 1943 account of ‘Autistic Disorders of Affective Contact’ (Kanner, 1943). He described 11 children with what would now be regarded as severe autism. Three of these 11 were girls, and as...
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How Autism Manifests Differently in Girls: What Families Need to Know
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2010 The Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network released data that showed “ASD prevalence…was 4–5 times higher among boys than girls” (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6302a1.htm)....
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“Labels Do Not Describe Me” Gender Identity Among Women on the Autism Spectrum
A large number of women with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are currently undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. In the United States, for every four males diagnosed with ASD, only one female is diagnosed (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012). While there is likely to be a true sex difference in...
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“Give a Spit” to Help Scientists Uncover the “Female Protective Effect” for Autism
For years, we’ve known that four times as many boys as girls are diagnosed with autism. More recently, genetic research has surprisingly shown that the various genes that cause autism are equally distributed in boys and girls. So what explains this difference - why do some girls who have the...
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The Social Needs of Women on the Autism Spectrum
Current research on adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) without intellectual disability suggests that outcomes for adult women with ASD are especially poor relative to those of men (Taylor, Henninger, & Mailick, 2015). These findings stand in sharp contrast to recent findings that women...
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Special Challenges and Creative Solutions When Providing Services to Females with Autism
The majority of individuals with autism are male, and females with autism are often overlooked in discussions of needs and program planning. Special challenges exist in serving individuals with autism who are female. In addition, females may be vulnerable in ways that are often not acknowledged or...
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A Support Group for Parents of Tween Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder
The gender imbalance among those diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is 4 to 1 boys to girls. When considering those diagnosed with ASD without intellectual disability, the imbalance is even greater - 7:1 (Skuse & Mandy 2015). One consequence of this gender imbalance is that parents...
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Women at Work
When I founded Yes She Can in November 2013 I created the motto: Women with Autism. We work. With you. It was my vision that with proper training and support, women with autism could and should join the competitive workforce and work side by side with neuro-typical peers, whether it were shelving...
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The Initiative for Girls and Women with Autism Spectrum Disorders at Yale
In the summer of 2013, a program for building relationships and promoting community for teenage girls and women with autism spectrum disorders began at the Yale Child Study Center, supported by a gift from Jim and Marilyn Simons. The initiative was conceptualized as a means of bringing together...
