To think a lot of children may be being misdiagnosed with Autism & Adhd

@sunshine244 just because there is a spectrum for autism doesn’t mean this isn’t a gender issue. It is literally a gender issue. The issue isn’t that the same amount of boys and girls can get missed through the net, it is that overwhelmingly it is girls who are missed and delayed and misdiagnosed and their parents (mothers) are ignored. This is not happening to large numbers of boys.

All genders can be autistic

Boys are more likely to be diagnosed as autistic than girls, and much earlier

This is not just due to different presentations which I outlined

Here are some stories from real women about this female issue;

www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/identity/autistic-women-and-girls

Males are not being dismissed from healthcare like women are for being ‘anxious’ I read this dismissive experience from women on mumsnet every 30 seconds or more

I think you are deliberately misunderstanding my point.

Autism is a spectrum of symptoms. Initially autism was thought to only affect boys, and therefore the list of symptoms was only based on boys. Boys of very specific types.

We now know that the ways that autism can show are much more varied. This isnt just a gender issue, but also looking at how different ND conditions interact. For example presentation of a child with ADHD and autism together, or a child with a PDA profile of autism are very different from classic autism with LD.

What is needed is an increased awareness of how the various ND conditions can manifest. This also has the helpful positive impact on women and girls in particular.... just not excluding others who present in an atypical manner (which could be male or female).

Exactly the same here.

It’s not outdated gender assumptions it’s backed by statistics and data. Obviously not all stats are perfectly linear but no, this is not how you solve a gender related issue ‘don’t forget the boys as well everyone!’

Females are significantly disadvantaged in all walks of healthcare but yet we are still advocating ‘better care for some of the boys too who could get missed’ this is not how it works. Girls are harming themselves badly due to lack of proper care and misdiagnosis. Girls are statistically at much higher risk of harm due to this issue. It’s a female issue and we shouldn’t sweep it up under the carpet.

Girls are expected to behave a certain way in society and get labelled with harmful or derogatory terms when they are not fitting in society the right way. They get continually treated badly often resulting in more trauma. Most women experience sexual assault in their lives at some point. Autistic girls are very vulnerable and they are not seen or heard properly in society it’s not right

and yes, as a mum of any child with ND, your parenting as a female is heavily questioned and you are expected to demonstrate to everyone that you are not the issue. My child’s father was not asked to do anything

Yes this is super common

To add - for high masking boys the histrionic label is given to the mums instead. Which is just as big an issue. I was sent on a parenting course recently. Nearly all mums of high masking boys.

A diagnosis is only helpful if it is the correct diagnosis

Yes girls are statistically hugely underdiagnosed. But the best way to ensure no one goes under the radar is to widen awareness of how autism can present in all its different forms - not just outdated gender based assumptions.

Just let them wonder why they feel so different?

Whist their BEHAVIOURS get plenty of labels?

@SkylarFalls There's a difference between autism/adhd and personality disorders though. Diagnosing children with autism or adhd is obviously fine because they are neurodevelopmental conditions which are present from early childhood. But I dont think that in most cases it is a good idea to label a child as having a personality disorder such as eupd.

A diagnosis didn't absolve me from accountability either it just allowed me to focus on working on the things that were changeable, and accept the things that weren't

I was NOT doing much self improvement when I was trying to fit in ways I never could.

Once I recognised and accommodated that, I could improve the parts that were just behavioural.

Without an official diagnosis I could never do that. Because part of the trauma of being undiagnosed is always having your distress minimised and even mocked and judged. So I always doubted myself if I felt I had needs or illnesses etc. So you end up turning the gaslighting in on yourself to make yourself less of a problematic complainer.

So quietly recognising that I might be Au, without the official label, was never ever going to work for me

Of course there's still people who will react to people finally learning to communicate their experiences and needs as "making excuses". But now, I internalise that less.

FFS

Non diagnosed autistic / ADHD people are labelled ALL THE DAMN TIME.

Either as coping fine when they're not just from achieving grades while they die a little inside in the process

Or as rude, or not trying hard enough, or dramatic, attention seeking, aggressive, many many other things

The absence of a diagnostic label does not mean they are going through life un-labelled: it's the EXACT OPPOSITE

Most people SHED their most hurtful and unhelpful labels when they get an official diagnosis

There is no way I would be advocating for more children to be diagnosed with personality disorders.

Girls are statistically proven to be disadvantaged

People are not making this up or saying no boys get missed or all kids don’t present differently

I am not citing anecdotal evidence based on one child, this is well researched

What we are saying is the systems do not work well for children who do not ‘typically’ present and that’s known to be more likely in females. There is far lower diagnosis of EUPD in men than women, so even the boys who get missed as young children do not end up in ED units with EUPD diagnosis which has a stigma attached to it. It’s more socially acceptable for women to be labelled as histrionic and unstable and this has been the case for a long time.

I had the same problem. There's been a huge push for awareness that many autistic girls are high masking. Which is true. But there are some girls that have more typical male autism symptoms and vice versa. The focus on gender and symptoms has gone too far I think.

I have two very high masking boys. One diagnosed, one awaiting assessment. It's been a nightmare to get to this point because they are well behaved and quiet but holding in hige anxiety (with typical meltdown behaviours at home).

This is something that makes my heart sink. As a mother of a child who is awaiting an ASD diagnosis, it worries me so much that we are misdiagnosing.

I've seen one child with what looked like PANDAS in a thirty year teaching career, the change was sudden and frightening for all involved. I don't know what the diagnosis ended up being or if one was ever pursued.

@Dontyoujustlovethebritishsummertime I'm curious about how much you've looked into this.
I know strep can be a big factor/trigger and after COVID there were strep outbreaks. Do you think this is mirrored in an increase in pans?

www.theguardian.com/science/2022/dec/02/fourth-child-dies-in-uk-after-contracting-step-a-infection

@ByGreyWriter autism has a formal assessment process. Unlike PD’s which pretty much are provisional likely diagnosis which can not actually be definitively diagnosed. I feel like you don’t really know what you are talking about autism is not a personality disorder at all and one has a real assessment process, it is not something someone will slap a label on you and ruin your life with it. You are tested. Young children with behaviour challenges should be tested. If they are not autistic they will not get a diagnosis?

The point is no girl should be suffering until teenage years to get one of the EUPD diagnosis. People should listen to women and girls rather than brand them as ‘irrational’ ‘selfish’ ‘hormonal’. Not so long ago women were locked up during their periods and lobotomised as deemed mentally unwell due to PMT. I see here teen girls are being viewed as ‘arrogant’ and ‘narcissistic’

This is just cruel. Girls are not treated the same as boys it’s a fact

This sounds like my teen. He started with OCD after lockdown and I put it down to having his early teens suddenly disrupted, the isolation etc.
It has been ignored that this was a sudden onset and also that he was deficient in folate and b12 - we've hopefully rectified the deficiencies.
At camhs we were told very autistic and wait for a diagnosis. We're still waiting.
My happy, easy going child changed overnight.
I think autism is overshadowing other problems that could be helped and are dangerous in themselves if ignored (b12 deficiency).

@ByGreyWriter I just think that there are ways to support teenagers with those kind of problems without slapping a lifelong label of a personality disorder on them when they are going through a time of enormous changes anyway