Hey guys, in this video, I'm explaining why Aspergers and girls is often missed.
And these are the top three reasons coming up.
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My name is Dan.
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Okay, guys.
Welcome back.
This is a video on Aspergers in girls.
Now this is an interesting subject and I want to cover some stuff
that you probably haven't even.
Heard of that, the reasons why people don't really get diagnosed
with Aspergers, if they are female.
Okay, guys.
Welcome back.
It's so good to have you all here.
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Okay guys.
So before we get started, let me know if you are a person who
has Aspergers syndrome, or if you're a person who is looking.
To actually find out information for somebody else on the spectrum.
I would love to know because I'd like to open the dialogue I read
and respond to every single comment.
So your comment it's never wasted.
Okay.
So basically aspergers syndrome is a diagnosis of autism that really isn't
used that often anymore because it used to be part of something called the DSM.
Um, but now that the DSM has changed since that update in 2013 where the
DSM five actually removed Aspergers as a terminology phrase and they changed
it to just autism spectrum disorder.
So basically anyone who's diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome now just has
the diagnosis is autism autism spectrum disorder, which is absolutely fine.
It's just that we needed to find that terminology before we go on with the
video, because people might be like, Hey, why is he talking about something that is
kind of not in the diagnostic criteria?
At the moment.
So there are some issues here, right?
With females on autism.
No, it's no kind of shocker to see that there's three times likely a male is going
to be diagnosed with autism than a female.
Now, there are many reasons for this and people can speculate and
accumulate different ideas and stuff like that., but I am listed
out three, the main reasons why.
People kind of don't, don't really see those, those, characteristics and traits
in females as often as they do in males.
And that can be, you know, it's frustrating.
Yes.
But there could be loads of issues for graph.
I've only highlighted the main three here that I think are
really important to know, because.
Basically, if you are on the spectrum and you're looking to get a diagnosis
and you're female, then these kinds of areas are definitely going to help you.
You communicate that to the assessor or if you're like a mom or a parent or
whatever of a kid who is female, and you suspect it on the spectrum, this is how
you go through this process to figure out, you know, ways that, uh, The, the
medical industry, maybe failing when they're trying to diagnose efficiently.
Disclaimer, though autism in females is getting better.
As in like diagnostically, the national autistic society are doing more
information on this training courses and all that kinds of stuff for people
who are female on the spectrum, on people who are diagnosing people who
are female on the spectrum, because.
You know, let's just face it.
There's been a huge gap, you know, it's, it's, it's incredible.
And the fact that there are more females in the world than males,
um, it doesn't really other fellows, three times as many males with autism
than there are females with autism.
So that is a really interesting statistic, but I want us to put that
out there at the national cystic society and other charities, not just them.
Right.
They are also kind of bringing information out around autism, diagnosing
females and autism, but also there's a bunch of awesome advocates who are
on the spectrum who are doing stuff.
I'll uh, I'll try and leave some links to them in the description below.
If I can remember, if not, just go over to Instagram, hit me up, shoot me a DM.
Send you some awesome creators who are female on the spectrum and, yeah.
All right, let's go on with the video.
Okay.
So number one, this is the number one reason why people who are
female don't often get diagnosed.
With autism right away.
And the first thing is masking.
Now I'm asking these kind of like where somebody pretends, they put up a
front, the prominent act, they become a persona to kind of get through the day.
So put some perspective, say you're going to school.
And then you pack your bag, you get up and you go to school.
And when you get to school, you're confronted with situations like.
Teachers friends, a lot of crowds stuff that . So
anxious girls on the spectrum.
I tend to lean towards this masking where they will put on a front.
Like they.
Well, smile and kind of get on with it.
And yeah, consciously trying to mute that in a, um, chaos, if you will, to, to get
through the day and just kind of make the best of a bad situation and they mask it.
So then asking their symptoms and masking their characteristics and masking them
traits because they don't want that attention to be brought to them because
of the fact that they, I don't like all that kind of hustle and bustle
the attention on the social anxiety and the anxiety that comes with that.
In the first place, which is super interesting.
Now I'm asking you something that isn't exclusive to females, but I do
know about females all likely to be prominent, to mask than males and you
know, who knows why the neurological pass of a female versus a male brain,
obviously different because the define is differently in how they're
developing and stuff like that, you know, with different hormones, et cetera.
But in terms of the, the reasons why I'm not entirely sure, because I'm
not a neurologist, a psychologist or any kind of like biological scientist.
So I don't really know.
The ins and outs of why that happens.
I just know that it does happen.
And so you can almost, you know, you know, so basically think about this.
He goes to school in mask all day, they come home and then they're just
completely ruined down and they have like crazy shutdown, crazy meltdown.
And the whole night is spoiled because they've been masking all
day and then like a different person in school when they are at home.
That's super interesting to think about, because think about this.
Imagine they go for an autism diagnosis.
And they're sitting there in the, you know, in the room waiting for the
diagnosis and then the, the person who's diagnosing basically just says like, Oh
no, you know, they seem okay because, you know, they're masking, they seem fine
to me, you know, like, yeah, that's the kind of area which is super difficult.
And I think it's one of the biggest gray areas as well is to figure
out when people are asking, because they're not really asking the right
questions and we'll get onto the reasons for that in a short while.
But in terms of.
My number one reason.
Masking is a huge one.
If you'd like to learn more about I'm asking, I highly recommend just typing
into Google, alter the masking, or check out some of my other videos on autism
and female, where I interview some of my friends who are female on the spectrum.
I will leave a playlist link above here.
So you guys can check out my playlist where I interview other
females who are on the spectrum.
And hear the diagnosis process from their point of view
super-valuable . Very awesome.
Okay.
So number two, this is probably one of the most common reasons
why people are not diagnosed.
I think probably this is the most common reason.
Um, and this is misdiagnosis, so I know so many females on the spectrum
who go to get their diagnosis.
And all of a sudden they say, Oh, well, I got diagnosed, but I
think, yeah, autism, I actually got diagnosed by hold on or some kind of
personality disorder or just ADHD.
This is a huge issue.
Based on the other things, it's kinda like a ricochet, you know, a bit of
masking, a bit of the other thing, which we'll talk about in a minute.
And then, you know, on the bit of lack of education from the professional's
point of view, depending on where you go, obviously they will miss the
diagnosis of autism for the appropriate.
Like diagnosis.
And what they'll do is they'll kind of default to things
that they are comfortable in.
Like maybe it's personality disorders, maybe it's ADD, maybe it's ADHD you
know, so they'll just say, Oh yeah, yeah.
You know, you've got bipolar disorder or you're extremely anxious.
You've got GAD.
Um, and this happens quite often actually.
And then isn't it.
So the, you know, the female kind of like, you know, Does the treatment
plan or the medication from the doctor and it's not working and they go back
and say, Hey, look, this is rubbish.
I'm not actually getting anywhere with this.
And then the doctors reassess the situation and say, Oh shoot.
You know, actually I think you're on the spectrum that didn't work.
And so it's, it's not a good, it's not a good system because that
rigmarole kind of drives people.
I'm a bit crazy, I guess, if you will, because you're, you're trying, you think
that the doctors that expressed interest and heart and they do to a certain extent,
but then they also get things wrong.
Which is quite annoying.
So I would say that misdiagnosis is probably one of the more common reasons
why people on the autism spectrum who are female don't get diagnosed for a very long
time and sometimes not at all, which is very sad, obviously for obvious reasons.
But needless to say, we're trying to change that with everything
we're doing here on this channel that you guys are part of that.
So thank you so much.
So why don't you hit that?
Like.
Button down below this video to show some support for females on the spectrum.
Let you know that you're enjoying this video.
That'd be super awesome.
And also, why not share this video on Facebook with your friends who
may have a daughter, or if I'm going to be this female on the spectrum?
That was super awesome.
Okay.
So this is my third and final reason why females are not diagnosed as much
as males when they're on the spectrum.
And it's very much down to resources, resources in the fact that old
resources that are reference points for diagnostics criteria.
So basically let's think about this.
When autism was first started to crop up into kind of mainstream
literature in research papers.
It was back in 1946 by the guy called Hans Asperger tense, the terminology,
and the guy called Leo Kennan.
Now both kind of Aspergers where we're working on the same thing
simultaneously checking out all of this stuff is going on with.
You know, kids, uh, they, they pulled together kids and they were
testing their kind of neurological differences or the developmental
differences and trying to figure it out.
And that's how they categorized autism.
And that's how they basically develop the diagnostic criteria really.
But when you look at that, Hans Asperger, for instance, decided that he was adamant
that only males could help autism, right?
Because he only studied males on the autism spectrum.
He said that females couldn't get it from yada, yada, yada, some
reasons, some reason, but also.
Then moving forward, you have like research papers from people which
are completely technically wrong, but at the time it was best they
had, so they were diagnosing them.
So anyone who studied it and studied autism kind of goes through studying that.
Uh, area, uh, th those historical documents and then kind of is set,
setting a mindset, thinking, well, girls can't be on the spectrum, so
they're not looking for autism where they're trying to diagnose these
people when they go in for assessments.
So old resources equal bad accessibility to.
Appropriate bottom and diagnostic criteria.
And it's really annoying.
It's really knowing that that actually happens, but it's very much
a common occurrence and you can see how like those old resources would
cause a misdiagnosis because they, they're not really looking for that.
They're kind of reading old papers saying, well, it doesn't fit into the criteria
for males and you think, well, yeah, but no, everybody on the spectrum is a male.
Remember?
So it's kind of one of those things to me it's um, These are
the three most important ones.
You can take bear these in mind when you're trying to go for a diagnosis
or you're, or you're planning out with diagnostic criteria.
And I think that be really, really interesting.
So if you enjoyed this video, guys, please share this video, give it a
like obviously, and hit that subscribe button, see more videos like this,
and I'll see you next time guys.