Does Gender Influence Core Deficits in ASD? An Investigation into Social-Communication and Play of Girls and Boys with ASD

Abstract

Due to the predominance of boys diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), girls are rarely studied independently. Research specifically focusing on play and social-communication in girls with ASD is extremely varied. We were interested in whether girls with ASD demonstrated equivalent social-communication and play skills in early childhood relative to boys, using two measures focused on the specific quantification of these variables. We also examined whether the associations between developmental variables and social-communication and play differed by gender. Forty girls with ASD were individually matched to 40 boys based on ASD severity. Our results suggest that girls and boys were more similar than different, however they also raise questions about the potential differential associations between development and requesting ability in girls and boys with ASD.

Parent-Endorsed Sex Differences in Toddlers with and Without ASD: Utilizing the M-CHAT

“…Our findings concerning follow to point might suggest that females possess a strength over males on this socially oriented parent endorsed behavior even though the child received an ASD diagnosis at some point. In contrast to Mundy et al (2007), Harrop et al (2015) did not find significant differences in joint attention between males and females with an ASD diagnosis.…”

An integrated EEG and eye-tracking approach for the study of responding and initiating joint attention in Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…Thus, the lack of females within the ASD sample prevents us from identifying what their pattern of EEG/eye-tracking change would be. Recent literature that specifically explored the JA skills in children with ASD suggested no gender differences between girls and boys evaluated through a structured session of play interaction 56 , or a parent report scale focused on JA 57 . We can therefore speculate that females with ASD, carefully matched on developmental and diagnostic variables with the males recruited in this study, would have the same pattern of EEG/eye-tracking response of JA.…”

Women & Girls on the Autism Spectrum: A Profile

“…Nichols, et al [16] state girls on the spectrum present subtle differences in their behavior, when compared to their typical peers. For example, they are often able to answer questions about social situations, social communication and friendships but are slower to process the information.…”

“…Yet, despite this there is an increasing amount of literature that discusses the differences in females compared to males [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. However, this is failing to translate into practice.…”