Aspies For Freedom

Can you give a url for "Beyond the Square"? My daughter might be interested at some point.

Here are my (maybe gross- I apologize ahead of time to any one offended! ) generalizations after raising an Aspie daughter, now 16, and having read some of the "female Aspie" literature:

Girls are harder to diagnose and frequently just get dxed as ADD (mine did)! I have also heard it takes 3 shrink visits til the correct dx is made most of the time!

Girls because of their hormonal, social upbringing and female brain are better at empathy than male Aspies.

For the above reasons maybe female Aspies don't usually lash out in middle school the way boys do. On OASIS and other Aspie sites young male aggression is a big problem in the schools (as a result of bullying or meltdowns or whatever).

According to Tony Attwood many female Aspies dread growing up, looking mature and stall the process as long as possible (my daughter in a nutshell). Many will have little girl voices also for the above reason (also Tony Attwood).

Female Aspies look younger than the general population imo. They are frequently pretty and have angelic faces (this from another Aspie female online, she calls them "Aspie angel faces") Wonder what the metaphysical reason is. First the metaphysical, then the physical I always say....

For many getting married and having children helped them to mature (anecdotal, based on online chats with other Aspie mothers, particularly on OASIS).

Aspie girls are frequently preyed upon by unscrupulous males. We seldom let Hope out of our sight for that reason! We tell her never to be alone with a male she doesn't know or trust.

People can now add their favorite gross generalizations. But there is always a grain of truth in generalizations, don't you think guys?

Ellen, I wanted to respond to your post. I have a daughter, she is not diagnosed, my son is.  My daughter is very shy, she has a degree in classics/history, she works as a cleaner.
She is able to achieve very well academically, both in sciences and languages. But she is very limited because of her shyness and communication difficulties. She suffers high anxiety when faced with social situations, new jobs etc.  Like your daughter she has the face of angel, she speaks in a soft childlike voice, and people always take her to be much younger than her years. She is my precious baby, still.
She loves animals and she would make a wonderful vet, but her communication and social problems prevent her from taking up this career option. Instead she has decided to focus on a career in IT. Disappointing in some ways.

My son required a diagnosis as when testosterone kicked in - he broke down, he was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, social phobia and then when I finally made contact with a doctor who could recognise aspergers, the correct and helpful diagnosis made.

Same here--makes me wonder if I could get a DX, even if I tried.

Me too, which is why I started this thread

Where I live in the USA it costs about two thousand dollars.  But that was a joke?  Closure, priceless and impossible.  Diagnosis, pricey.

I read your post - thought it was interesting and I it occured to me that you are right with your point about how in cases it affects women less severely or less obviously. My son has a diagnosis, but as he was growing up I could see he was just like me and my dad and brothers.
My son seemed to struggle more socially as he was growing up  perhaps because boys tend to play in groups, they don't seem to have one on one friendships to the same degree that girls do. My daughter and I are very quiet, socially, being female the world has different expectations of us.

To your first point - I don't think aspergers was included in the DSM IV until 1994 so this may explain why a correct diagnosis was not given. Also, three is young, I don't know that three year olds are into social play with their peers, it occurs to me that a diagnosis of aspergers at three years of age is not appropriate given this is such an early stage of social development.  Perhaps simply recognising a possible  autism spectrum disorder would be more fitting.

Not to be cynical, but why would these things change if it is the women who can get through unnoticed--with less pressure to conform--than the men?  Remember that Asperger's description in the DSM has a "the disturbance must be disabling" clause in it... not those words specifically (too lazy to look it up now) but something very much to that effect.

Well said, that's exactly the way I feel about this.  Basically you don't need an official diagnosis to confirm what you already know about yourself.

Same reaction here! I also have to fight with medical doctors who have prejudices about women and heart disease, women and Ankylosing Spondylitis (my other AS! )

So why not fight with the neuropsychologists? :p