Hawaii Celebrates Girls’ Day 7

Asperger's Syndrome, Autism Spectrum, Celebrations • Tags: ,

Hello Kitty - CopyYou can click on this link for a short explanation: Celebrating Girls’ Day in Hawaii by Chris Bailey | HAWAII Magazine | Hawaii news, events, places, dining, travel tips & deals, photos | Oahu, Maui, Big Island, Kauai, Lanai, Molokai: The Best of Hawaii

I decided Girls’ Day might be the best time to bring up a topic dear to those of us who are mothers of girls on the autism spectrum.  Why is it that girls on the spectrum are not getting equal time when it comes to studies, and why are some doctors still down playing or misinterpreting symptoms in girls?  Read more about this in an October 1010, article from Science Daily by clicking on this link:  Girls with autism or ADHD symptoms not taken seriously, study suggests.

Researchers in Boston have been studying electroencephalograms (EEGs) of babies and believe they can detect which babies are most likely to develop autism, but get this, they note that the accuracy rate for girls was only 80 percent at age six months and it dropped to 60 percent after that.  Whereas, the boys accuracy rates were not even significant at six months and were nearly 100 percent at nine months, dropping to 70 to 90 percent  by twelve months.  You can read about it at this link:  New test to detect autism in babies? – Daily Dose – Boston.com.

The above study seems to indicate studies done on boys are not valid for the girls.  So why aren’t more studies being done on the girls?

I find all of this worrisome.  How many girls are we preventing from achieving their full potential by denying them understanding?  What do you think?  Do you know of ways we can help to change this? 

7 comments

  1. Pingback: Autism Awareness for Our Girls Too | dswalkerauthor

  2. Hopefully things will change since faithful parents are trying to get Autism brought out more to the public.
    My nephew and his wife adopted two autistic children from a Catholic orphanage. So I’ll be learning more and more as time goes by.

    • Grace,
      There are a lot more resources than there were five years ago, but the studies still focus on the boys. Those of us who had trouble getting the correct diagnosis for our daughters think the data indicating there are more boys on the spectrum may be flawed. We feel many girls are still not getting the correct diagnosis. It is better, but it is not perfect. There are still too many gaps especially for the children who are high functioning. Even with the new criteria that will take effect in 2012, my child would meet the criteria for high functioning or level 1 autism, and she met it really from birth, yet it took us over four years to get the right diagnosis. Even then, I did a self referral to the doctor who finally gave us the diagnosis that actually fit and that was the first time I had even heard the term Asperger’s.

  3. I’m no expert on reading studies, but it seems like there are rarely any females represented. I don’t know what to do but spread the word.
    I really think there are differences between girls and boys with autism, I hope that in the future there will be more studies and books about this. Thanks for writing about this topic.

  4. Hi Sue,
    Very interesting post with lots of links. I haven’t read them yet, it’s getting late here and my dyslexia is getting the better of me I’m afraid.
    Just wanted to pop by and say I’ll give them a bash tomorrow. I’m particularly interested in reading the second link, so I will leave you another comment once I have.
    Love and hugs. xx 🙂

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