To wonder how asd presents in girls?

[Tealady1983]

I am posting here for traffic mainly. My ds 6 has asd but I have heard that symptoms present differently in girls. I have a dd and am starting to wonder if she is on the spectrum too.

Bump

Hopefully this will help.

www.autism.org.uk/about-autism/autism-and-asperger-syndrome-an-introduction/gender-and-autism/women-and-girls-on-the-autism-spectrum.aspx

Not all girls present "differently". Saying this can be as misleading as many girls, my 6 year old DD included has traits of classic autism and was under investigations from the age of 18 months of age.
No masking, slipping under the radar or passing as "normal" here.

Tony Attwood talks quite a bit about how many (not all) girls present differently in this book. Well worth a read; the paediatrician who diagnosed DD referred to it as their 'bible'.

I used to work with children (mostly boys but a few girls) with severe ASD. The main difference that I noticed between the girls and the boys was their speech. The boys largely didn't/couldn't speak at all but the girls did speak a lot although often very repetitive and lots of singing.

ASD is a very broad spectrum though so it's hard to say what "normal" presentation for girls or boys (or both) is.

I noticed that most of the children showed a lack of eye contact and sensory issues and tended to prefer routine and familiarity. But that's quite a generalisation and didn't apply to all.

In families one difficulty with younger siblings is that they copy traits or follow behaviours of older siblings so might behave autistic or show signs of ASD that are just learnt/copied beahviours as that's what they see as normal. Mixing with other children can show a different.

I only know one girl with ASD, my niece now age 20, she wasn't diagnosed until she was 12 and the main difference I notice compared to the many boys I know who are ASD is that my niece was painfully shy, almost mute even with family and can not make eye contact, she also has a very introvert awkward body language

Thank you all so much for your replies and advice.
I think she is a little young (14months) to be assessed as yet but something isn't sitting right with me but I can't quite put my finger on what. She is a very advanced little girl in terms of doing things like walking etc but not So much with the behaviours and understanding of things x

My dd 7 has ASD, she is very verbal, and sounds almost nt, but she has very high anxiety and she is very sensitive to noise. She does not like birthdays.

My dd was diagnosed at 18. She has a lot of panic attacks due to over stimulation (crowds, busy noises, things not being how they should be etc).

She's very articulate. She's very clever and seemed advanced compared to her peers in many ways but when she got to about 9 (when social stuff gets more intricate) she really started to flounder as she sees things in a very black and white way.

I'm also probably somewhere on the spectrum. I mimic accents too.