12-18-2007, 07:52 AM
12-18-2007, 08:06 AM
I'll be interested to see what you turn up from your research, Bella.
12-18-2007, 08:12 AM
Congratulations Bella!
That seems quite a reading list - I hope you are a fast reader!
Perhaps your local autism society resource centre will have those books in their library; I believe mine has most, if not all, of them. No sense in spending a fortune - most of them are over fifty dollars each.
That seems quite a reading list - I hope you are a fast reader!
Perhaps your local autism society resource centre will have those books in their library; I believe mine has most, if not all, of them. No sense in spending a fortune - most of them are over fifty dollars each.
12-18-2007, 12:23 PM
Congratulations on the diagnosis, Bella. I think it will open some doors for you. I had a Donna Williams book but can't seem to find it. I also have "The Essential Difference" by Simon Baron-Cohen which I found helpful, and "The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-Time".
It would be really good if some more diagnostic criteria were added for females. I don't agree that there are 4 times as many male aspies as female - I just think more females don't present as obviously as males.
Yes, I have been on Wrongplanet and sometimes despair of women getting a better go over there. Some of the talk on the adult thread really scares me. We're probably better off on the general threads over there but it is a shame we meet up with so many chauvinistic attitudes at times.
It would be really good if some more diagnostic criteria were added for females. I don't agree that there are 4 times as many male aspies as female - I just think more females don't present as obviously as males.
Yes, I have been on Wrongplanet and sometimes despair of women getting a better go over there. Some of the talk on the adult thread really scares me. We're probably better off on the general threads over there but it is a shame we meet up with so many chauvinistic attitudes at times.
12-19-2007, 05:02 AM
woman from mars Wrote:
Congratulations Bella,
it must feel great to know for certain, thanks very much for the list of books.
I agree with tenaciouscj about the ratios of male / female AS.
This has always been my thinking since I started to research AS, there seem to be a disproportionate number of self diagnosed females on AFF if we assume the statistics are correct.
it must feel great to know for certain, thanks very much for the list of books.
I agree with tenaciouscj about the ratios of male / female AS.
This has always been my thinking since I started to research AS, there seem to be a disproportionate number of self diagnosed females on AFF if we assume the statistics are correct.
A very pertinent point; especially as the ratio of men to women using the internet generally is supposed to be high (world-wide about 60:40, ranging from 50:50 in the US to 94:6 in the Middle East). It would be the expectation that next to no females would be on this one, which we know is certainly not the case! 
12-19-2007, 05:17 AM
I wonder how many female aspies do pretty okay in childhood, where girls are often allowed freedom of expression such as tomboyism, and then, in adolescence we get creamed for not properly conforming to social expectations. It might be a bit better now than being a teen in the 60s, in that more latitude is given for what women might hope to do with our lives.
12-19-2007, 09:38 AM
Batman55 Wrote:
I truly feel that many of us won't be so "obviously" Aspergian until life starts to become a "bit too much" for us to handle--then the AS problems start showing up in droves. Which is true in my case--I managed to pass as an eccentric kid for a good while and had friends, but then... at a certain age... it all went rapidly downhill.
Any thoughts?
I think you could say that about any disability. Which is to say that, anyone can pass as "just a little different" until it all becomes too much to handle, and if it's valued activity by society the person is disabled, or is "clearly having problems" and once distinction is established that allows labeling to occur.
This, of course, makes no reference to some people's tendency to stereotype certain traits as having to do with "something being wrong with you." An example I saw on here is where one person said that having a single transverse palmar crease was scientifically proven to have to do with chromosomal disorders. Even though there are people with a normal set of chromosomes and a normal set of impairments who have this single crease. Based on my speech difficulties people often assume that my disability is completely different from what it is.
But without these forces working against you, anyone can certainly appear "normal" until the demands change, even if they change at infancy or birth.
12-19-2007, 11:28 AM
Bella Wrote:
...I don't actually consider myself very good at dealing with emotions in others, so I don't know that that is correct. I'm particularly bad at dealing with upset people. My only method of helping is through advice. It seems a lot of the time that people who are upset want sympathy mostly, which I don't do. ...
I relate to this.
I remember starting to read that book Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus a few years ago when it was all the rage, a few of my friends had copies and it was being passed around my social circle.
I got as far as Chapter 3, or whatever the chapter was...
It said something about if someone comes to you with a problem, men and women deal with that situation differently. It said that if a woman complains to her partner about something that's happened or someone who's upset her, what she really wants is tea and sympathy, because that's what women offer in that scenario, and when her male partner doesn't deliver that, she gets even more upset and angry.
What men actually do is they don't offer tea and sympathy, they treat it as a problem that needs solving and they like to offer solutions.
I got that far and thought: "Ohmigod! I'm a bloke!" (For the record, I'm female.)
I don't really do tea and sympathy either, I don't do empathy or emoting on behalf of other people, (although I do have quite volatile emotions myself if something goes wrong in my life), instead I think, okay, how do you solve this, what's the next step, what's the best thing to do now? And then I tell people what to, how to solve their problem.
12-19-2007, 11:32 AM
I've read that there is a difference in misdiagnoses for females and males.
Before being assessed by an expert in AS and formally DX'd as Aspie, many people are misdiagnosed. Males are more likely to be misdiagnosed as having schizotypal disorders, and females are more likely to be misdiagnosed as borderline personality disorder (which seems to me to be the catch all that basically means you're not 'normal' but they don't know what you are).
Before being assessed by an expert in AS and formally DX'd as Aspie, many people are misdiagnosed. Males are more likely to be misdiagnosed as having schizotypal disorders, and females are more likely to be misdiagnosed as borderline personality disorder (which seems to me to be the catch all that basically means you're not 'normal' but they don't know what you are).
12-19-2007, 11:40 AM
I think it's also important to recognise that a lot of the symptoms and traits amount to a developmental delay, not a permanent inability or disability.
I think we're not born (i.e. programed) with the same innate abilities that NTs have in terms of social skills, reading body language and facial expressions, but that these skills *can* be acquired.
I think the gender difference in presentation of Aspies arises because of the NT gender differences. Growing up female, females generally are much more analytical about feelings and emotions. How many teenage female conversations in the playground or the back of the class amount to 'that Joe Bloggs I really like, he just smiled at me, what do you think that means?' and a group of girl friends will spend an endless amount of time analysing whether it was a 'he wants to be friends' smile, 'he fancies you' kind of smile... and so on... or something happens, someone says something, and again, it gets deconstructed in the minutest detail... it's easier in these circumstances for a female Aspie to learn by the process of 'fuzzy logic' what's appropriate behaviour, what's not, what people mean or don't mean when they say or do certain things.
Child and teenaged males just don't deconstruct and analyse their peers behaviours, emotions, what they say and do in the same way that females do.
Because AS is a development delay and not total disability or inability to learn and acquire behaviours (or I don't believe so, anyway), males and females can acquire these skills, it's just that NT female behaviour enables Aspie females to pick up these skills more easily than NT males allow Aspie males in that respect.
In some ways, NT and Aspie males are more closely aligned in their emotional detachment and social awkwardness than Aspie males and Aspie females.
I think we're not born (i.e. programed) with the same innate abilities that NTs have in terms of social skills, reading body language and facial expressions, but that these skills *can* be acquired.
I think the gender difference in presentation of Aspies arises because of the NT gender differences. Growing up female, females generally are much more analytical about feelings and emotions. How many teenage female conversations in the playground or the back of the class amount to 'that Joe Bloggs I really like, he just smiled at me, what do you think that means?' and a group of girl friends will spend an endless amount of time analysing whether it was a 'he wants to be friends' smile, 'he fancies you' kind of smile... and so on... or something happens, someone says something, and again, it gets deconstructed in the minutest detail... it's easier in these circumstances for a female Aspie to learn by the process of 'fuzzy logic' what's appropriate behaviour, what's not, what people mean or don't mean when they say or do certain things.
Child and teenaged males just don't deconstruct and analyse their peers behaviours, emotions, what they say and do in the same way that females do.
Because AS is a development delay and not total disability or inability to learn and acquire behaviours (or I don't believe so, anyway), males and females can acquire these skills, it's just that NT female behaviour enables Aspie females to pick up these skills more easily than NT males allow Aspie males in that respect.
In some ways, NT and Aspie males are more closely aligned in their emotional detachment and social awkwardness than Aspie males and Aspie females.
12-20-2007, 09:20 AM
Ellen Wrote:
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.
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.
Maybe you're worrying needlessly. Hope might end up one of those Aspie women who've never have a relationship, let alone marriage and/or children. I'm one and I'm twice Hope's age.
12-20-2007, 11:05 PM
Quote:
This is pathetic, but when I was a girl, the only REAL path in life was wife and mother, and I knew it, so I set about using my skills to achieve that goal.
Pretty much true when I was a girl also, but this path seemed intrinsically abhorrent to me. [Not intended to be a value judgment on this path, just stating my reaction to that expectation.] I'd place myself as neither tomboy nor girlygirl. Nerd would be the closest stereotype, except that I didn't have any cool geeky talents to speak of. So I kind of suffered a lot, not feeling like I fit in anywheres, until I got much older.
12-26-2007, 02:04 PM
Ellen Wrote:
Hope was quiet as a mouse til 5th grade when some hormones kicked in and she started to tease and flirt with her ex-military male teacher. EVERYTHING she did he interpreted as lack of respect so he came down on her hard. She was pretty much unfazed though. She became a little defiant. She has always been fearless...
A shrink told me once that Hope's defenses, self-absorption has helped her to deflect a lot of the sh**t that went on in elementary school. Everything was always "somebody else's fault". In retrospect I'm glad she had that tough exterior emotional shell, to tell you the truth.
Also, Asperger's was mentioned by a school psychologist in about 2nd or 3rd grade so I remember spending one weekend researching it, looking at the criteria, BUT HOPE DIDN'T MEET ENOUGH OF IT, so I dropped the idea she was autistic. THAT is how girls escape under the radar imo.
She continued to rock, esp. in the car, and I found that worrisome 'cause I knew it was odd (to me) but nothing clicked for me because there was then no autism in the family (I didn't know the signs).
Again, I am glad in some ways she wasn't diagnosed then because I think she would have been sequestered, not mainstreamed. With just the ADHD dx she mingled with others, was fully mainstreamed til the second half of fifth grade when she was pulled out of the ex-military teacher's classroom because he had had enough. A little while later we finally had an AS dx by our specialist...
A shrink told me once that Hope's defenses, self-absorption has helped her to deflect a lot of the sh**t that went on in elementary school. Everything was always "somebody else's fault". In retrospect I'm glad she had that tough exterior emotional shell, to tell you the truth.
Also, Asperger's was mentioned by a school psychologist in about 2nd or 3rd grade so I remember spending one weekend researching it, looking at the criteria, BUT HOPE DIDN'T MEET ENOUGH OF IT, so I dropped the idea she was autistic. THAT is how girls escape under the radar imo.
She continued to rock, esp. in the car, and I found that worrisome 'cause I knew it was odd (to me) but nothing clicked for me because there was then no autism in the family (I didn't know the signs).
Again, I am glad in some ways she wasn't diagnosed then because I think she would have been sequestered, not mainstreamed. With just the ADHD dx she mingled with others, was fully mainstreamed til the second half of fifth grade when she was pulled out of the ex-military teacher's classroom because he had had enough. A little while later we finally had an AS dx by our specialist...
Ellen, something has been troubling me about this post ever since I first read it. I think it is the sexualising of your daughter's behaviour when she was 10. It's unlikely she would have understood how her actions would have been interpreted and she's most likely to have had a big crush on her teacher.
If she was acting flirtatiously, she must have learnt it somewhere, if even on the TV. I used to get what I now call "stupid crushes" on people and certainly had no idea how silly it might have appeared to others at the time. I now wonder whatever could I have been thinking.
I don't think the teacher handled this situation at all well. It could have been out of embarrassment but he was the adult and she the child so it was up to him to find a way of dealing with her behaviour without laying blame on her.
There is so much encouragement for women to act flirtatiously and Aspies are often very good mimics. A young girl (even if NT) will often not have full (or even very much) understanding of the vulnerable position their behaviour leaves them in.
12-26-2007, 02:54 PM
I think it's probably a good thing she's not interested too much in boys just yet. It causes a lot of distractions. My younger daughter (almost 17) is also not interested in going out with boys because she says she wants to concentrate on finishing school first.
She also sees most boys her own age as very immature but when she does respect a boy, she is nice to him. She expresses herself rather forcefully when she doesn't like a boy eg. pushing him into a wall. I couldn't see myself being that assertive.
As far as I know, she is quirky NT.
She also sees most boys her own age as very immature but when she does respect a boy, she is nice to him. She expresses herself rather forcefully when she doesn't like a boy eg. pushing him into a wall. I couldn't see myself being that assertive.
As far as I know, she is quirky NT.
12-28-2007, 08:52 PM
What kind of input do you want?