Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

If children are children and gender isn't a hardwired difference - why is it then...

33 replies

tabulahrasa · 20/06/2011 12:45

that boys and girls with Asperger's present differently?

Just musing really, I'd like to think that boys and girls aren't fundamentally different and that a lot of what is taken to be that is created by parenting and environment...but it's widely accepted that girl's with Asperger's don't have the same traits as boys - why's that then?

OP posts:
HarrietJones · 20/06/2011 13:12

Girls with ASD tend not to be diagnosed as easily/noticed in some cases as they are quieter/hide amongst the crowd rather than kicking off( obviously a generalisation). Supposedly there is a huge number undiagnosed.

Original poster
tabulahrasa · 20/06/2011 13:12

www.aspergerfoundation.org.uk/infosheets/ta_girls.pdf

girls tend to have imaginative play and cope better socially, and cope better overall, of course that's tends to and not always do...

Children with AS aren't really subject to social pressures in the same way though, they pretty much ignore them, lol.

I was just thinking that it's a neurological impairment and it does seem to affect different sexed children differently, so it would suggest that there is a difference neuroligically between the two?

But like I said, I was just curious, lol

OP posts:
StewieGriffinsMom · 20/06/2011 13:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

steamedtreaclesponge · 20/06/2011 13:01

Exactly, PrettyCandles.

Children with Asperger's are subject to exactly the same societal influences with regards to gender as normal children.

PrinceHumperdink · 20/06/2011 13:00

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

joaninha · 20/06/2011 13:00

Tabulahrasa - what kind of differences are you talking about in particular? I have only a son with Aspergers so I don't know the way in which Asperger's girls typically present.

PrettyCandles · 20/06/2011 12:59

Behaviour is influenced hugely by external responses to that behaviour. Say a child, any child, is overwhelmed by sensory input and be comes distressed, or behaves differently. If they are responded to in a gender-specific manner, a boy might be expected to 'man-up' and get a relatively negative reaction to his behaviour, whereas a girl might be 'permitted' her reaction and soothed. If her reaction was to tune out and become very quiet, it might not even be noticed. The boy could get increasingly distressed and learn greater fear of whatever set it all off. The girl OTOH could learn acceptable self-soothing behaviours. This learning would be happening from their very earliest days. The same scenarios could surely apply to children with Aspergers?

Or perhaps boys and girls are just fundamentally different!

HarrietJones · 20/06/2011 12:59

They say it's because girls can copy/ hide better even with ASD. Which means they are different.

Interesting ...

Swipe left for the next trending thread