April’s Autism Awareness Month just ended, but the work of researchers and educators
is continuing.
Recent studies have found that males and females with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience different symptoms according to gender. Educators and students in the education field still have a lot to learn about ASD.
“We don’t get it like we thought we did,” said Mary Ann Winter-Messiers, coordinator of
Project Preparing Autism Specialists for Schools.
A lecture and training session Friday, titled “Understanding Girls on the Autism Spectrum: We Have a Lot to Learn,” welcomed students, professors, professionals and the parents of children with ASD. The speakers focused on new information that shows females with autism have different symptoms than males with autism.
Disorders under the ASD umbrella include autism and Asperger’s syndrome. Historically, little research attention has been paid to females.
“Girls weren’t being focused on from the beginning,” Winter-Messiers said.
The previous assumption of the 1:4 ratio, that for every girl with autism there are four autistic boys, is old and outdated, agreed speakers Winter-Messiers and Cynthia Herr, research associate and assistant professor in the College of Education. Winter-Messiers and Herr are both on the board at the Bridgeway House, which serves more than 150 families a month affected by autism by offering home programs, social skill groups and many other resources, according to the Web site of the lecture host, the University’s Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research and Service.
According to the lecture slides, research has demonstrated males and females are not alike at all. Boys begin to show autistic tendencies at a younger age than girls. Usually in the pre-school age, boys will begin to show signs of autism. Girls will generally show signs around 12 years old.
Boys will have social impairments, repetitive and limited play, and will be easily distracted.
Girls on the autism spectrum take longer to process information and understand the fundamentals of social communication, and will show social impairments in adolescence.
Many boys with autism often have few or no friends, while girls may have “little mothers,” girls their own age who nurture and help them. Girls with ASD also have stronger pretend-play skills and mirror-neuron skills than boys with ASD.
If girls with autism do not receive assistance and are not diagnosed at an early age, they are at a high risk for depression, anxiety, isolation, identity crisis and eating disorders.
Winter-Messiers is currently researching depression, anxiety, friendship quality and suicidal ideation in males and females with ASD and comparing the data results to see the differences.
“The field of autism is going through growing pains,” Herr said. “The more we know, the more we know we don’t know.”
The speakers cited information from a book published in 2009, titled, “Girls Growing Up on the Autism Spectrum,” by Shana Nichols, Gina Marie Moravcik and Samara Pulver Tetenbaum.
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