zlacker

>>geox+(OP)
Why just the males though? Is there a hypothesis for why it only affects them?

I wonder, are we simply underdianosing the women with autism as usual?

And I wonder if there's a correlation between drinking diet sodas (as opposed to naturally sweetened?) and getting your children evaluated for autism (like, say - diet soda drinkers are on average wealthier, and that correlates with better access to healthcare and more parental involvement, thus reducing underdiagnosis of autism?)

Given how sensitive obstetrics are to even small risks and how prevalent aspartame is, I'd be surprised if there is a genuine causal link here of such strong statistical effect. I mean, how many people use zofran? And yet obstetrics we're limiting its use in pregnant women just for a very very small alleged increase in the risk of heart problems in the baby.

>>atomic+j5
4 out of 5 people diagnosed with autism are male. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_gender_differences_in_...

So, there’s a significant gender difference here, possibly with diagnosis but likely a deeper connection. Alternatively, it might impact both but this study didn’t have enough statistical power to notice the correlation.

>>Retric+W6
This is anecdotal but I strongly disagree with "likely a deeper connection." I really do think girls are just severely under diagnosed. I have several adult women and AFAB friends who all display autistic traits and, to me (an autistic man), are very obviously autistic but it's been so hard for them to get a diagnosis even when they want to. The system is really set up to diagnose young boys with rich families only. Getting diagnosed as an adult is expensive and arduous and most people in the field appear to be biased against diagnosing women. Granted, autistic traits are presented slightly differently in women due to cultural norms but I do believe they're easy to spot with practice.

>>63+wf
Wouldn’t being autistic yourself make it harder, not easier, for you to notice autism in others?

>>WendyT+Xg
Can you explain your reasoning for this? I've found that neurotypical people are pretty bad at identifying autistic people who are masking (that is after all the point of masking) whereas it's relatively easy for me to recognize it because I'm so familiar with my own mask. I'd also like to believe that I have more knowledge about autism in general than your average allistic person. They might be able to recognize that something is "off" about a person but I don't think they could reliably point out when it is or isn't autism and I think they'd have a pretty hard time justifying it if they do guess correctly. Maybe the close family members of autistic people could do well at it though.

>>63+Xr1
My understanding of autism was that those who have it are often less able to accurately evaluate others’ emotional states, which I extrapolated to identifying autistic behaviors. I don’t doubt you have a ton of knowledge on the topic, I asked in order to better understand from you if this idea is accurate, but didn’t want to put in a whole explanation if you weren’t interested in engaging.

>>WendyT+9A1
Yeah I can see how that makes sense. All I can say is the old cliche "autism is a spectrum" line. Some of us are better at evaluating emotional states than others and it definitely requires some degree of self awareness that not everyone has. I'm not totally sure that emotional state carries over to behaviors anyway. Also if we're sticking to the popular perception of autism, autistic people are also supposed to be good at pattern recognition and I think that applies here. In sum, I think because of specialized knowledge and personal experience, the average autistic person would be better at spotting other autistic people than the average allistic person, but certainly there's a lot of wiggle room there.