Critical Thinking Example: Camouflaging in Females with ASD

Gelbar (2017) argued that the reason it is sometimes more difficult to diagnose autism in young women and girls, particularly the ones without overt developmental disabilities is due to camouflage. Here, the point brought out is that they are more likely to compensate, or mask, or conceal their difficulties. The females use and develop specific tactics, such as masking, manualizing social behaviors, learning social reactions from the media, and initiation to cope with the daily social demands and conceal difficulties. The women do so while experiencing both the positive and negative impacts of camouflaging. Doctors have also observed that due to the gendered and cultural anticipations of the females anticipated manner of behavior, most of the women with ASD may customarily suppress their stimming and motor mannerism. The women with ASD are expected to demonstrate fewer self-stimulatory actions when in the company of others because when compared to the men with the condition, they are keener to mask their deficits (Castle & Abel, 2016).

There are many females with ASD who have not been diagnosed than the males. In this case, the reason is that compared to the men, the girls are better able to camouflage their social handicap (Jansen, Rombout, & Lemmen, 2014). The women achieve this because they are more social by nature. For instance, they are more emotional and have more empathy. The women are time and again more publicly cognizant and more communally driven and are more expected to pursue opportunities for interaction and play. The women are also more competent in ensuring collective activities through reflection. Consequently, they can appease and apologize more quickly when they make a social error, which, in turn, increases the likelihood of their anomalous behavior being forgotten or overlooked by others. Furthermore, as the girls mature in recognition and self-awareness of their variances, they often make more considerable efforts to evade drawing attention. For example, they do so by being compliant at school, well-behaved, and quite.

Friendship and Relationship

Halter (2017) argued that the symptoms linked to ASD entail the deficits in social relatedness, which are evident in disturbances in maintaining and developing a relationship. However, fewer girls are diagnosed with ASD because, in contrast to the over-simplified, stereotypical perception that people with the condition do not have friends, it is not uncommon for the females with ASD to have one or more friends. Therefore, in ASD, friendship, and the relationship are more commonly observed in girls than in the boys, which makes it difficult to diagnose them with the condition. The autistic girls tend to be overlooked instead overtly rejected, rather than autistic boys who are more openly socially excluded. As adolescents, the girls with ASD demonstrate better quality of friendship than the boys with ASD whereby such traits include being more secure, more helpful, and closer. The females tend to display a level of friendship quality that is comparable or close to that of typically developing girls. Conversely, ASD is diagnosed more in boys than the girls for the reason that the men tend to portray a different quality of friendship, such as being less secure, less close, and less helpful compared with either neurotypical boys, or girls with or without autism (Gelbar, 2017).

The teenage girls with ASD also report seeing friendship as rewarding and essential. Therefore, many of the females have the motivation to maintain and develop association, although this becomes increasingly difficult in the teenage years. The reason is that it is the period when they recognize high levels of relational aggression within their friendship, which designates that it is significant trouble to deal with social conflicts (Gelbar, 2017).

Reliance on the Male Prototype

The girls with ASD are often not diagnosed due to the reliance on the male prototype whereby they are identified earlier only when they exhibit the male externalized behaviors or the boys features of autism. According to Lyons (2010), the parents of the girls with ASD struggle to find information specific to the females. ASD is perceived to be usually a male condition whereby out of four individuals, three are male. In this case, the reality is that the females with autism are not diagnosed for the reason that the symptoms of their autism may look different than what professionals and parents are used to seeing in boys with ASD. The point brought out here is that there is less research on girls with ASD, which means that the professionals and parents of girls with autism have had fewer resources to fall back on to find assistance with the practical concept of raising the child. As such, taking into account the gender difference, up until recently, it has not been easy to acquire any information on how to help girls with ASD.

Regarding the reliance on the male prototype, it is evident that the autistic traits are not always picked up even when the girls are screened. Even after gaining correct diagnosis, parents often face difficulties convincing professionals, including educators that their daughter has autism, hence, adding to their distress. Nonetheless, the ones on the more able end of the spectrum are often diagnosed later than the males, as their challenges become more noticeable when they hit puberty. The onset of puberty reveals the difference between the autistic and the non-autistic girls. Consequently, it is when the girls with autism encounter physicians well trained in child neuropsychology that they will be given the appropriate diagnosis for ASD.

Conclusion

Based on the reasons that fewer girls are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, it is evident that the girls and boys have different traits, whereby the females need to show either more significant intellectual disability or behavioral problems, or both to be diagnosed. Furthermore, although autism has historically been regarded a predominantly disorder that affects boys, there is now increasing responsiveness that it manifests itself in some ways, and differently in girls. As a consequence, there are significant numbers of women and girls who have been misdiagnosed or overlooked. Consequently, it is crucial that the future studies focus on developing a more systemic knowledge of the female manifestation of ASD. Additionally, there is the need for future research, which would raise awareness amongst the clinicians involved in the early diagnosis, as well as treatment of the condition.

It is also likely that due to the different manners ASD manifests itself in males and females, combined with the ascertainment bias and the camouflaging behaviors of the girls, the clinicians, teachers, and parents fail to recognize various aspects linked to the disorder. Such concepts include multiple actions, as well as issues, such as depression and anxiety, as the underlying signs of autism in girls. Given the possibility that there is a considerable level of missed and misdiagnosis of ASD in the female population, the challenges that the women with ASD report as a consequence of having received a late diagnosis to the condition are even more concerning and pertinent. Therefore, future research needs to concentrate on raising awareness amongst clinicians involved in early diagnosis and identification, as well as an understanding of the manner the females present autism. The step is essential because it is sometimes more difficult to diagnose autism in young women and girls, particularly the ones without overt developmental disabilities is due to camouflage (Gelbar, 2017).

References

Castle, D. J., & Abel, K. (2016). Comprehensive womens mental health. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Correa, B. B., & Gaag, R. V. (2017). Autism Spectrum Disorders in Adults. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Gelbar, N. W. (2017). Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: a clinical handbook. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Halter, M. J. (2017). Varcarolis' foundations of psychiatric-mental health nursing - E-Book: A clinical approach (8th ed.). Amsterdam: Elsevier Health Sciences.

Jansen, H., Rombout, B., & Lemmen, K. (2014). Autipower! successful living and working with an autism spectrum disorder. London: Jessica Kingsley Publ.

Lyons, T. (2010). 1,001 tips for the parents of autistic girls: everything you need to know about diagnosis, doctors, schools, taxes, vacations, babysitters, treatments, food, and more. New York: Skyhorse Pub.