Girls and Autism

In out practice we are noticing many young women turning up with Autistic traits that have not been identified, sometimes after years of anxiety and sensory issues. Girls with autism can look different to boys with autism, especially teenage girls. Girls with autism will often have friends, be friendly and appear to manage well socially. The girls we see have usually already seen a few psychologists for anxiety, sensory processing issues or eating disorders but what we are becoming more aware of is that there is an overarching neuro-diversity that likely explains all those symptoms.

What is Autism?

Autism is a life-long neurodevelopmental condition that may that affect the way someone might think, feel, communicate, learn, behave and interact with others and their environment with no known cause. Autism is an umbrella term given to the range of characteristics that may impact an individual and so it is important to look at what the individual needs to support their wellbeing. It is currently estimated that 1 in 70 people in Australia are Autistic with a 4:1 ratio of boys to girls being diagnosed.

How Autism is different in girls?

So far research around Autism mostly reflects the experiences and characteristics of Autistic boys and there is currently a rise in research around experiences of Autistic girls and how this actually differs to Autistic boys. Some of the differences are outlined below:

·       Compared with Autistic boys, Autistic girls tend to exhibit less repetitive behaviours such as hand flapping, fidgeting, vocal sounds, and less insistence on same routines, special interests and overall preferences for sameness. Some of the clients we see do have these behaviours, but learned to hide them from a young age.

·       Autistic girls often display less outwardly challenging behaviours and instead internalise their thoughts and worries to not bring attention to themselves.

·       Play- girls tend to be more controlling in play or choose to be alone in an effort to gain control of the play. Autistic girls can often engage in pretend play more than what is seen in Autistic boys.

·       Autistic girls appear to be more interested in connections with others and like to make friends more than Autistic boys do. Autistic girls often have less social challenges than boys because girls seem to watch and learn from others and copy their social cues and use learned scripted phrases to keep up with conversation to fit in.

·       Masking abilities – girls seem to have a higher level of ability to mask their Autistic characteristics and traits to adapt to their environment, which means they are able to hide their challenges and preferences and be able to appear “neurotypical”.

·       Meltdowns – all this internalising and masking traits Autistic girls do on the inside is often exhausting and this might be why you only see meltdowns at home, at the end of the day, or after an event.

 Why girls are often diagnosed later?

Autism is predominantly diagnosed in a child’s first few years of life, however there seems to be a wave of girls and women not being diagnosed until beyond these early years. We see many woman getting their diagnosis in their teens or even in to adulthood. The above mentioned differences between Autism in girls and boys provides opportunity for Autism in girls to go unrecognised or be misdiagnosed. A lot of the criteria to be diagnosed with Autism is predominantly based on characteristics from Autistic boys. Girls do not display as many outward behaviours, they appear to be social and their struggles are often internal. these less obvious signs may not be as easily picked up or recognised as Autistic traits.

Being misdiagnosed is becoming a popular reason girls are not being diagnosed until later. Girls might be diagnosed with Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder because of their lack of attention while they’re engaging with their preferences. They might also be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or obsession compulsive disorder to explain their inner struggles of worrying about how to fit in or preferences for sameness. For some individuals, a feature of their Autism is an aversion to tastes and textures of food and because of that can sometimes lead to a reduced nutritional intake and subsequently be diagnosed with an eating disorder. All of these diagnoses may genuinely be appropriate however because of the high overlap of these conditions with Autism it would also be worthwhile looking at an Autism diagnosis and whether that may co-occur or better explain the individuals challenges and preferences.

Interested in an Assessment

If you’re interested in an Autism assessment for yourself, your child, or someone else - you can find out about the assessment process on our Frequently Asked Questions page (click here to go straight there). You can also have a chat directly with your therapy team if you have one to find out more.

Support options

Often times, Autistic people are automatically referred to all different kinds of therapists for a whole list of different “treatment”. However, it will be most helpful for you to work out what your actual goals are with your challenges and preferences in mind and then work out which kind of professional will be best suited to help you achieve your goals.

Autistic people might engage with a range of services to support their goals, including speech therapy, occupational therapy and psychology services. To help you work out what your goals are and come up with a therapy plan, whether you have formally received a diagnosis of Autism or not, speak to your therapy provider or give the team at Lit a call to discuss your situation and therapy options.

There are a lot of great resources, websites and books on this topic. Yellowladybugs.com.au is a great place to start.