This Autism Awareness Month, we are highlighting that diagnostic criteria are developed using white boys and men, failing to serve many neurodivergent girls and women.
As we celebrate Autism Awareness this month, it is important to recognize that diagnostic testing for the sexes is not equal. Often women and girls are misdiagnosed, and their their autism is missed altogether because they don’t fit the criteria developed for white boys and men.
In this Scientific American excerpt and article below, one woman outlines her difficulity in getting the world to recognize her challenges with Autism.
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By Zhara Astra on April 7, 2022
“You don’t look autistic.”
This is what people say when I first tell them I’m on the spectrum. But I do look autistic. The problem is that people, especially medical professionals, don’t know what to look for when it comes to identifying and diagnosing autism in women and girls.
I am a professor, a screenwriter, producer, mother and a woman who has autism. The challenges I have had in getting my diagnosis lead me to believe that we have to develop a more accurate standard autism test and better diagnostic criteria specifically for women and girls. This test and these criteria need to be co-created by autistic women and psychologists who understand how autism manifests differently in women and girls.
Read more at Scientific American.
