POST1: Women on the Autism Spectrum
A major portion of this blog will be focusing on the problems faced by women on the autism spectrum. I came by my interest in this topic naturally. As a woman on the spectrum, I have a personal connection to the topic, and I have a lot of firsthand knowledge about what it is like to be a woman on the spectrum. For example, I was not formally diagnosed with autism until I was 17 years old. This is in part due to the fact that I did not struggle in school, but it is also intrinsically linked to my gender. Autism has long been typified as a male disorder, and, as a result of this, women on the spectrum are often overlooked by parents, teachers, and professionals, especially if they are verbal. In the United States, the diagnostic rate for autism in boys in 1 in 42. In girls, it is 1 in 189. Many women on the spectrum, myself included, have theorized that this discrepancy is due in part to the fact that women present symptoms of autism differently than men and in part due to the fact that ...
