Peter Happe Popular Books

Peter Happe Biography & Facts

Sex and gender differences in autism exist regarding prevalence, presentation, and diagnosis. Men and boys are more frequently diagnosed with autism than women and girls. It is debated whether this is due to a sex difference in rates of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) or whether females are underdiagnosed. The prevalence ratio is often cited as about 4 males for every 1 female diagnosed. Other research indicates that it is closer to 3:1 or 2:1. One in every 42 males and one in 189 females in the United States is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. There is some evidence that females may also receive diagnoses somewhat later than males; however, thus far results have been contradictory. Several theories exist to explain the sex-based discrepancy, such as a genetic protective effect, the extreme male brain theory and phenotypic differences in the presentation between sexes, which may all be intertwined. Researchers have also debated whether a diagnostic gender bias has played a role in females being underdiagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Researchers have also speculated a gender bias in parental reporting due to the expectations and socialization of gender roles in society. Since autism is a largely genetic and hereditary condition, genetic factors that lead to differences depending on sex come into play, such as the role of androgen signaling in male development or X-linked mutations, whose associated genetic conditions are typically more common and severe in males. The extreme male brain theory suggests that autistic brains show an exaggeration of the features associated with male brains, such as increased size and decreased relative connectivity as well as systematic thinking over empathetic thinking. The imprinted brain hypothesis suggests genomic imprinting is at least partly responsible for the sex differences in autism and points to the evidence for a common genetic cause with schizophrenia. Compared to men, women are generally required to be more impaired by their autism or have more cognitive or behavioral conditions than their male counterparts to meet autism spectrum criteria. There is evidence of increased incidence of social anxiety, anorexia nervosa and self-harm in autistic females, though the increased rates of anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders may be due to confusion or conflation with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), which is particularly common in autism. Autistic girls and women show higher social motivation and a greater capacity for typical friendships than autistic boys and men, are less likely to be hyperactive, impulsive, have issues with conduct or stereotyped behavioral traits, and have been shown to mask their autistic behaviors and social difficulties more frequently than autistic men. Autistic males often exhibit more easily observed behaviors at a younger age resulting in parental observance and subsequent evaluation of the child. In contrast, behavior of young females is more often overlooked, regardless of any associated at-risk factors for ASD or other developmental delays. Ultimately, this may contribute to females more frequently receiving their ASD diagnosis later in life than their male counterpart. There is a growing consensus among neuroscientists that the number of autistic women has been vastly underrepresented due to the assumption that it is primarily a male condition. Background Hans Asperger was one of the first people to study autism, with all of his four study subjects being male. Another early researcher, Leo Kanner described "autistic disturbances of affective contact" in the group consisting of eight boys and three girls. Today, Autism Spectrum Disorder is commonly defined as a neurological developmental disorder with symptoms of poor social communication, repetitive behaviors, sensory sensitivities, executive dysfunction, and hyper-fixations. In the modern day, women are less likely to be diagnosed as autistic than men; they are often misdiagnosed or not noticed to be neurodivergent by doctors. Women are also more likely to be diagnosed as autistic at a later age than men. This discrepancy in diagnoses is believed to be caused at least partially by camouflaging, a common autistic phenotype presented in females, which hides autistic traits. Theories explaining gender diagnosis disparity Extreme male brain theory Extreme male brain theory is an extension of the empathizing-systemizing theory, which categorizes people into 5 different groups based on their empathizing and systemizing expressions. In the general neurotypical population, females have a greater ability to empathize, and males have a greater ability to systemize. Simon Baron-Cohen's extreme male brain theory states that autistic males have higher doses of prenatal testosterone and on average have a more systemizing brain, as opposed to the more empathizing female brain. He suggests that autistic brains show an exaggeration of the features associated with male brains. These are mainly size and connectivity, with males generally having a larger brain, which is seen in an exaggerated form in those with ASD. Individuals with ASD were found to have widespread abnormalities in interconnectivity and general functioning in specific brain regions. This could explain the different results on empathy tests between men and women as well as the deficiencies in empathy seen in ASD, as empathy requires several brain regions to be activated which need information from many different areas of the brain. Baron-Cohen therefore argues that genetic factors play a role in autism prevalence and that children with technically minded parents are more likely to be diagnosed with autism. Although autistic females have been documented to have higher testosterone levels, which could support the Extreme Male Brain theory, not all autistic females show male-specific symptoms, leaving the Extreme Male Brain theory with Autism Spectrum Disorder to be controversial. Imprinted brain hypothesis The imprinted brain theory suggests genomic imprinting is at least partly responsible for the sex differences in autism and implicates schizophrenia as well, claiming that genetic and physiological evidence suggests the two conditions are on a spectrum in which some mutations in certain genes cause lower social cognition but higher practical cognition (autism) while other mutations in the same genes cause lower practical cognition with higher social cognition (schizophrenia). Female protective effect hypothesis According to the female protective effect hypothesis, more genetic mutations are required for a girl to develop autism than for a boy. In 2012, Harvard researchers published findings suggesting that, on average, more genetic and environmental risk factors are required for girls to develop autism, compared to boys. The researchers analyzed DNA samples of nearly 800 families affected by autism and nearly 16,000 individuals with a variety of neurodevel.... Discover the Peter Happe popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Peter Happe books.