Sex Differences in the Developmental Trajectories of Autism Spectrum Disorder

McFayden, Tyler C.; Putnam, Orla C; Grzadzinski, Rebecca; Harrop, Clare

doi:10.1007/s40474-023-00270-y

Cited by 18 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 102 publications

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“…The authors found that autistic Fs appeared to perform below typically developing Fs on measures of pragmatics, semantics, and above sentence-level structural language; however, vocabulary and basic grammar (receptive and expressive) appeared to be unaffected. These data are consistent with the review of McFayden and colleagues [59], in which S/G differences are most evident when social communication is evaluated in a naturalistic context rather than based on a standardized assessment. In fact, parents of Fs described greater difficulties than those detected through direct standardized measurement [60,61].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Even if the majority of the investigations on social camouflaging to date focused on F adolescents and adults with ASD, this feature is also present in children with ASD [64][65][66]. Recent research suggests that girls with ASD may "camouflage" real struggles with social communication by engaging in verbal and social communication, social mimicry, and behaving in ways that are superficially typical, and these factors, combined with male-referenced diagnostic criteria and unequal societal expectations for boys' and girls' social interaction skills across development, may complicate ASD diagnosis [17,59,[67][68][69][70]. Accordingly, a late or inaccurate diagnosis for females with ASD may result in difficulty accessing evidence-based interventions and in a lack of social support.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Accordingly, a late or inaccurate diagnosis for females with ASD may result in difficulty accessing evidence-based interventions and in a lack of social support. In this way, there is a high risk of experiencing social rejection and poor mental health outcomes [59,71,72].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Sex/Gender Differences in the Language Profiles of Italian Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Retrospective Study

Barsotti

Mangani

Nencioli

et al. 2023

JCM

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Sex/gender (S/G) differences in ASD language profiles have been poorly investigated. The present study aims to explore whether male (M) and female (F) children with ASD and with normal non-verbal cognitive abilities differ in their linguistic profiles. A sample of 76 Italian children with ASD (range: 4.9–8 years), including 50 Ms and 26 Fs, was retrospectively recruited. Language profiles were analyzed using standardized tests for the evaluation of receptive and expressive vocabulary as well as grammar. Grammatical comprehension was the most impaired domain compared to the other language measures in both M and F children. Comparing language profiles between S/G, Fs showed significantly better scores than Ms in grammatical production (p = 0.002), and Ms showed better active negative sentence comprehension (p = 0.035). Moreover, comparing the language profiles between Ms and Fs with a receptive disorder, Fs had significantly worse grammatical comprehension and better grammatical production than Ms. Even among children without a receptive disorder, Fs had significantly higher grammatical production scores. The S/G differences in language profile, particularly better expressive language in Fs than Ms, can partially contribute to the delayed ASD diagnosis or underdiagnosis of Fs without intellectual disability. Finally, the results document the importance of accurately investigating both expressive and receptive abilities in children with ASD.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sex/Gender Differences in the Language Profiles of Italian Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Retrospective Study

Barsotti

Mangani

Nencioli

et al. 2023

JCM

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“…This means that both men and women with the profiles found in this study may be missed, not just the women. Other studies have continued to show that the similarities and differences between the sexes (Natoli et al , 2023; McFayden et al , 2023), supporting our findings regarding the narrative of a different phenotype of autism, that is just more common in females but can also be seen in males.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Exploring the presence of a sex-specific phenotype of autism spectrum disorder in a random cohort of males and females: a retrospective case note service audit

Day,

Simmons,

Shade

et al. 2024

AIA

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Purpose Recent research has proposed a specific female phenotype within autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It suggests females exhibit differences in social communication styles with higher levels of camouflaging and compensatory strategies, as well as variance in restrictive repetitive behaviours (RRBs); however, many existing studies have been based on either small, disproportionate or child and adolescent samples, leaving questions about the specific phenotype. This study aims to explore the sex difference and phenotype in a clinic sample of individuals diagnosed with autism. Design/methodology/approach A service evaluation of sex/ gender differences on 150 historical ASD assessment reports (75 males, 75 females) using a 103-item questionnaire developed from a quantitative review of existing literature was undertaken. Findings Females camouflaged more significantly than males in five different areas (thinking how to act next, preparing conversation in advance, making lists of prompts/social responses, wearing a mask/acting, less monotone voice); however, these were not maintained in post-analysis correction. Originality/value This study points the evidence towards a different phenotype of Autism that is more common in women than men rather than a unique female phenotype.

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“…While historically the prevalence of autism showed distinct disparity in males and females, with a ratio of 4:1 31,32 , newer studies point to a ratio closer to 3:1 or 2:1 33 . Autism in females often presents differently from the stereotype of autistic behavior 34,35 and is therefore frequently mis- or underdiagnosed 36,37 . Furthermore, most studies of autism consistently enroll small numbers of females or exclude them altogether, creating a “leaky pipeline” that results in severe underrepresentation of females 38 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-parametric assays capture sex- and environment-dependent modifiers of behavioral phenotypes in autism mouse models

Wahl,

Karim,

Hassett

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Current phenotyping approaches for murine autism models often focus on one selected behavioral feature, making the translation onto a spectrum of autistic characteristics in humans challenging. Furthermore, sex and environmental factors are rarely considered. Here, we aimed to capture the full spectrum of behavioral manifestations in three autism mouse models to develop a "behavioral fingerprint" that takes environmental and sex influences under consideration. To this end, we employed a wide range of classical standardized behavioral tests; and two multi-parametric behavioral assays: the Live Mouse Tracker and Motion Sequencing (MoSeq), on male and femaleShank2,Tsc1and Purkinje cell specific-Tsc1mutant mice raised in standard or enriched environments. Our aim was to integrate our high dimensional data into one single platform to classify differences in all experimental groups along dimensions with maximum discriminative power. Multi-parametric behavioral assays enabled far more accurate classification of experimental groups compared to classical tests, and dimensionality reduction analysis demonstrated significant additional gains in classification accuracy, highlighting the presence of sex, environmental and genotype differences in our experimental groups. Together, our results provide a complete phenotypic description of all tested groups, suggesting multi-parametric assays can capture the entire spectrum of the heterogenous phenotype in autism mouse models.

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Sex Differences in the Developmental Trajectories of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Cited by 18 publications

References 102 publications

Sex/Gender Differences in the Language Profiles of Italian Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Retrospective Study

Sex/Gender Differences in the Language Profiles of Italian Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Retrospective Study

Exploring the presence of a sex-specific phenotype of autism spectrum disorder in a random cohort of males and females: a retrospective case note service audit

Multi-parametric assays capture sex- and environment-dependent modifiers of behavioral phenotypes in autism mouse models

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