The November 13th Newsweek has an article, More Than Just Quirky, about girls and women with Asperger’s Syndrome: Are girls and women sometimes not diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum because they do not have the same symptoms as boys and men do?

Girls, it’s noted, have more “socially acceptable” obsessions—”horse and books,” perhaps, rather than “vacuum cleaners or oscillating fans”:

“Girls tend to get obsessed with things that are a little less strange,” says Elizabeth Roberts, a neuropsychologist at the Asperger Institute at the New York University Child Study Center. “That makes it harder to distinguish normal from abnormal.” That observation is consistent with a 2007 study of 700 children on the spectrum, which found that girls’ obsessive interests reflected the interests of girls in the general population; the same was not true for boys.

In addition to more socially acceptable obsessions, Roberts says, the Aspie girls she sees are more adept at copying the behaviors, mannerisms and dress codes of those around them, than Aspie boys tend to be. “From my personal experience, they seem to have a greater drive to fit in than boys with Asperger’s do,” she says. “So they spend a lot of time studying other girls and trying to copy them.” When social settings change, this can spell disaster. “As you move from high school to college, or from one group of friends to another, you have a whole new set of rules to learn,” said one Aspie woman who asked not to be named. “Not only do you lose your own identity, but if you end up surrounded by the wrong people—mimicking their behavior without understanding the motivations behind it can lead to big trouble.”

Of course, it’s not just different symptoms that stymie diagnosis—cultural conditioning may also play a role. What looks like pathological social awkwardness in a little boy can seem like mere bashfulness or just good old-fashioned manners in a little girl.

Newsweek also points out that “social mores might also make the disorder more harrowing” for girls, especially as they grow up and are expected to be more ’sympathetic and empathetic than boys.” It’s even noted that “desperation” for some kind of social connections “can make girls with Asperger’s easy prey for sexual predators.”

Over the past few years, it’s occurred to me that more than a few friends and others whom I’ve known—-and women, in particular—are on the autism spectrum. Most of them are undiagnosed; knowing about Asperger’s has helped me to understand why one friend, one instance, used to get so irritated when I started analyzing books and movies (her feeling: just talk about them, no need to “break them down and ask all those questions”). Another related some misunderstandings about what a member of the opposite sex was saying and found herself in a situation that wasn’t so easy to extricate herself from. And, adolescence was the beginning of many difficult years after a childhood that had been comparatively peaceful, especially thanks to parents who were glad to encourage some obsessions and cultivate them.

The Newsweek article opens and closes by referring to a mother, Liane Willey, whose daughter was diagnosed with Aspeger’s. Willey notes that she is “quirky” herself:

Doctors diagnosed her right alongside her daughter. Liane says that diagnosis changed everything for her. “It was like a light bulb went off,” she says. “I was able to seek out the right kind of treatment, and after a lifetime of mimicking others, finally find my own identity.” And early diagnosis has helped her daughter (now a healthy teenager) avoid many of the pitfalls that Liane herself fell prey to.

I’ve got my own set of “quirks” and—following Charlie’s diagnosis, have wondered if I might be somewhere on the spectrum and, while there are many qualities that Charlie and I share, I don’t think I’m autistic (well, that’s what I think). Has having an autistic child made you more aware of your own “quirks” and obsessions, and possibly of an actual diagnosis?

Saying “a lot happened” in the past two weeks kind of seems like an understatement.

• The Search for Certainty (or, why we’re going to the dentist at 3.15pm)
  An emergency dentist visit for Charlie prompts me to think about why parents so often try to find medical reasons for why something’s going on.
• David Kirby exonerates thimerosal
  Maybe not exactly but the day may be coming……
• Today Show Today on Autism and Vaccines
  I’m briefly interviewed on a feature about vaccines and Dr. Paul Offit.
• A “Crusade Against Autism”—-To What End?
  Do we really need such a “crusade”? . Michael Fitzpatrick (who’s the parent of an autistic child) writes about how such a “crusade” does more harm than good.
• The Great Now What
  Though parents of just-diagnosed children often feel so confused and uncertain, Early Intervention and preschool services and programs are (here in New Jersey, at least) in place. After that, it always seems to be “the great now what” all over again.
• Positively Autistic on CBC News
  A recent CBC News special feature, Positively Autistic, says that “since the early 90’s, an autistic rights movement has sprung up, challenging the official view of autism and working to change how the world sees autism.”
• If It’s Raining, There’s More Autism?
  Another study from Michael Waldman, who wrote an earlier paper about TV causing autism.
• Pop Pop Redux
  A post about the Mugen Pop Pop Blueberry written on Election Night,
• What does it mean to lose an autism diagnosis?
  Does losing a diagnosis mean that one is “cured” of autism?
• Sensory Differences: Research at IMFAR 2008
  Should sensory processing differences be part of the criteria for autism?
• Robert Kennedy, Jr., and the EPA?
  RFK Jr. is under consideration by President-Elect Barack Obama to head the EPA?—Not good if you care about science.
• “Strange” Play As a Marker for Autism in Infants?
  Unusual use of toys in infancy a clue to later autism, according to a stuy published in the October issue of Autism, the journal of the National Autistic Society.
• Adolescence: Not easy, but no need to end it
  Newt Gingrich argues that we should do away with adolescence.
• New Theory About Autism and Genetics
  A new theory argues that arents’ genes are “in competition.”
• Over-diagnosis? Misdiagnosis? Or Just Better Diagnosis?
  Rod Welford, the education minister of Queensland (Australia), attributes the rise in autism prevalence in his state to parents in search of more services for their children—-not.
• Looks Like the Special Needs Mommy Wars Aren’t Over
  is Sarah Palin a potential leader for working mothers of special needs children?
• The Value of Money (the real stuff)
  Charlie learns to count money in the age of the ATM card.

“[A] sweeping theory of brain development that would change the way mental disorders like autism and schizophrenia are understood”——a “new idea” that “provides psychiatry with perhaps its grandest working theory since Freud, and one that is grounded in work at the forefront of science”: Today’s New York Times uses such grand language to introduce a new theory of psychiatric disorders in which parents’ genes are “in competition.” The theory is the work of Bernard Crespi, a biologist at Simon Fraser University in Canada, and Christopher Badcock, a sociologist at the London School of Economics. Here’s how the New York Times describes it:

Dr. Crespi and Dr. Badcock propose that an evolutionary tug of war between genes from the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg can, in effect, tip brain development in one of two ways. A strong bias toward the father pushes a developing brain along the autistic spectrum, toward a fascination with objects, patterns, mechanical systems, at the expense of social development. A bias toward the mother moves the growing brain along what the researchers call the psychotic spectrum, toward hypersensitivity to mood, their own and others’. This, according to the theory, increases a child’s risk of developing schizophrenia later on, as well as mood problems like bipolar disorder and depression.

In short: autism and schizophrenia represent opposite ends of a spectrum that includes most, if not all, psychiatric and developmental brain disorders. The theory has no use for psychiatry’s many separate categories for disorders, and it would give genetic findings an entirely new dimension.

What’s going on is not so much a “turning on or off” of genes but a “muffling” or “altering” of a gene “with a chemical marker that makes it hard for the cell to read the genetic code.” To illustrate how such an altering of a gene can present itself in seemingly opposite conditions, Dr. Crespi and Dr. Badcock point to Angelman Syndrome and Prader-Willi Syndrome, which both involve genetic disruptions on chromosome 15. Individuals with Angelman Syndrome have a “stiff, jerky gait, absent speech, excessive laughter and seizures.” Those with Prader-Willi Syndrome have “low muscle tone, short stature ….., incomplete sexual development, and a chronic feeling of hunger that, coupled with a metabolism that utilizes drastically fewer calories than normal, can lead to excessive eating and life-threatening obesity.” If the father’s genes dominate in the region of chromosome 15, a child develops Angelman Syndrome; if the mother’s genes dominate in that same region of chromosome 15, a child has Prader-Willi Syndrome: “The former is associated with autism, and the latter with mood problems and psychosis — just as the new theory predicts.”

Dr. Badcock noted similar contrasts in autism and schizophrenia, in terms of eye gaze (while autistic persons fail “to meet another’s gaze,” people with schizophrenia “often believe they are being watched”) and the notion that autistic persons are “mind-blind” and unable to infer others’ intentions and feelings, while (in contrast) “people with schizophrenia see intention and meaning everywhere, in their delusions.”

A number of scientists are quoted in the New York Times article as noting that the theory seems potentially “plausible” while yet “wrong” in terms of many of its details. The theory seems to draw much on theories of autism developed by psychology professor Simon Baron-Cohen, such as his work on mind-blindness and autistic persons lacing empathy, and on the notion that autism is the manifestation of the “extreme male brain,” according to which men are systemizers/engineers, while empathy is associated with the “female” brain. I’ve wondered often about expressions of empathy as displayed by my son; certainly, his tendency to systematize is apparent in his creation of patterns of order for himself. I do rather suspect, at least a few mothers will raise an eyebrow to find themselves even theoretically linked to a “psychotic spectrum,” however much it’s linked with a “hypersensitivity” to mood and feelings.

The male/systemizer and female/empathizer categories don’t fall into place very neatly in my own household. I’m more likely to set a few principles of order around here and Jim is very much, intuitively, attuned to what others are sensing and feeling—-how “sweeping” will this new theory be?

A recent post asking if autism is different in girls led to an interesting discussion; Sullivan also noted that the IACC Strategic Plan specifically mentioned “research on females with ASD to better characterize clinical, biological and protective features.” Back in August of 2007, the Telergraph, Charlotte Moore (author of George and Sam and the mother of three sons, two of whom are autistic) interviews four autistic women—one of whom (Lauren) was only diagnosed at the age of 23—-and asks whether the rate of autism in women is lower than that in men is due to women being better able to pretend to be “normal.” The women whom Moore interviews are very much aware of being different and of struggling to “conform to normal social expectations of female behaviour”; they’ve been bullied and been misdiagnosed with psychiatric illnesses or learning difficulties:

social stereotyping can lead to autistic behaviour going unnoticed. A woman who depends heavily on a dominant husband and has little life outside the home may well escape scrutiny. In school, while autistic boys are typically loud, disruptive and destructive, girls can be quiet, passive and compliant, but mentally absent; and students who give no trouble are less likely to be flagged up by a busy teacher.

Moore also cites a theory connecting autism to anorexia in some women:

Christopher Gillberg of the National Centre for Autism Studies at the University of Strathclyde explains, ‘A girl may be withdrawn and uncommunicative without attracting attention, but when she develops a calorie fixation it becomes a serious problem. Counting calories may be a manifestation of autism. Some women could be going undiagnosed.’

One psychiatry professor has even described anorexia as possibly being the “female Asperger’s. (Conversely, it could be argued that anorexics, while being obsessive-compulsive and having a “distorted pattern of processing information,” are too aware of social, of society’s norms and hyper-imagine what other people might be thinking about their bodies and appearance.)

Moore makes this comment about changing trends in the diagnosis of autism:

When the first of my two autistic sons was diagnosed in 1994, someone told me that autism was more prevalent among Jews (my sons’ father is partly Jewish). This notion probably arose because many mid-century psychiatrists and psychoanalysts were Jewish, so interest in and awareness of unusual mental states was higher among Jewish families, who were therefore more likely to seek consultations for their children. Similarly, Asperger believed autism to be more prevalent amongst the professional classes, failing to see that it was simply more likely that such a parent would seek his advice. We now know that autism is not related to ethnicity, income or social class. Are we about to find that it is not as strongly linked to gender as has been supposed, that there are more autistic women out there than we imagine?

I’m going to hazard a less-than-hesitant “yes.”

Help needed for autistic children in Puerto Rico: Please contact Maria.

And a mother recently wrote about her 7-year-old daughter in a post on autism being underdiagnosed in girls and women:

i have a 7 year old daughter that i know is autistic. she has every sign. she is seeing therepists and has seen diff doctors since the age of 3. she dont like clothing touching her skin, she struggles to fit in with other children, she used to keep washing her hands, obsesed with routine and would get very anxiouse and upset if things was different. ……………….there are so many things i could go on forever. is there help out there for girls as she is falling through the cracks and nobody is helping me as a mother. i feel like i,m failing my little girl

Suggestions and support—more than appreciated.

Addendum, 20.15 EST: The BBC News just reported on a yet to be published study that has shown that girls with “mild autism” are less likely to be identified and diagnosed than boys, due to the girls showing different symptoms and “fewer signs of symptoms traditionally associated with autism, such as repetitive behaviour.” And:

The researchers, who have yet to publish their research, found that the girls were more likely to have obsessional interests centred around people and relationships.

However, these interests were more likely to be acceptable to their parents, and therefore tended not to be reported to doctors.

In addition, these types of obsessions were less likely to be discovered using standard diagnostic questionnaires.
The investigators said more research was needed to analyse how autism spectrum conditions manifest differently in the sexes.
…………….
Judith Gould, of the National Autistic Society, said: “We hear from many women who have been diagnosed later in life.
“The way autism is presented in women can be very complex and so can be missed.

“It might be that due to misconceptions and stereotypes, many girls and women with autism are never referred for diagnosis, and so are missing from statistics [my emphasis].

“This may mean that many women who are undiagnosed are not receiving support, which can have a profound effect on them and their families.”

Writes Bridget Orr, a young woman with Asperger’s Syndrome in a piece accompanying It’s not just boys who are autistic, an article in the June 4th Guardian:

Female “invisibility” in the autistic spectrum should be a feminist issue.

Selina Postgate, 53, was only diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome last summer; she expresses a similar sentiment:

“Being an autistic woman has been pivotal to everything that’s happened to me. If I’d been an autistic man, my story could have been very different.”

Another woman with Asperger’s, 21-year-old Robyn Seward, also notes “the invisibility of girls on the autistic spectrum and by the association of autistic traits - social awkwardness, for instance - with masculinity.” Four times as many men are affected with autism than are women and there is speculation that autism is underdiagnosed in girls and women.

Returning to Orr’s comment—-imagine autism as a feminist issue……

Professor Stanley Fish of Florida International University, in Miami and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, opens a post about “norms and deviations” on his New York Times blog by citing a letter published in Time magazine:

A letter published in the May 26 issue of Time magazine protests the inclusion, in Time’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, of two researchers allied with the organization Cure Autism Now (a name that speaks for itself). The letter writer declares himself to be “outraged” because, in his view, “Autistic spectrum disorders are not diseases, but rather markers of ‘genetic difference’ in the same vein as skin color [and] gender.” He equates the search for a cure with genocide — it’s “part of a campaign to wipe out ASDs” [autism spectrum disorder] — and he wants the world to know that those to whom the cure would be offered neither need it nor desire it: “I speak for many when I say we are happy the way we are.”

A genetic difference is often adaptive and can be regarded as an advance in the evolutionary process; it is well-known that autism sometimes brings with it remarkable powers in the areas of music, art and mathematics. In the 2006 movie “X-Men: The Last Stand,” the augmented powers of those known as “mutants” are even more remarkable and include the ability to walk through walls, to move metal objects as large as California’s Golden Gate Bridge, to auto-generate fire or ice, to be in seven places at the same time, to read minds, to assume any identity, to kill with a touch, to fly like Icarus, to change the weather. These abilities are seen by many “normal” human beings, and a few mutants, as disabilities, as an indication that the person who possesses one of them is a freak.

Fish’s post is entitled Norms and Deviations: Who’s to Say?: Are those mutants in X-Men disabled, or differently abled, or more abled in some respects, and under-abled in others? These questions are relevant to discussions about autism. Whether you see autism as a disability and a difference, or as a disease and a disorder and, indeed, a deficiency, can profoundly influence your view of autism and of autistic individuals.

Fish is not critiquing the notion of “neurodiversity” in particular. The main business of his article is to note a pervasive similarity in how all (as he says) arguments for “difference” are constructed:

In the case of blacks and gays, the answer has already been given in the mantras “black is beautiful” and “we’re queer; we’re here; get used to it.” In the years since these battle cries were first heard, African-Americans and gay Americans have secured rights, gained in influence and earned respect, however grudging and superficial.

And why couldn’t the same thing happen to autism and mutancy or to any other mode of being that refuses the judgment of those who scorn, marginalize and seek to destroy it? For it is a question, [X-Men's director Brett] Ratner observes, of “the use and misuse of power.” Do those labeled deviant, he asks, acquiesce and “conform” to a “prejudice,” or do they “maintain their uniqueness … and embrace what makes them different?” [my emphasis]

“Difference” is the key concept in these socio-political dramas, and difference is an inherently unstable measure. In order to mark it — in order to say where difference resides — you must first identify a baseline, a center; but any such identification will appear to those exiled to the periphery as arbitrary, a function of prejudice and an illegitimate exercise of power: it’s only because there are more of you that you can consign us to the margins and refuse us respect. Armed with this argument (which flourishes in some versions of multiculturalist and deconstructive thought), there is no form of behavior that cannot make a case for its legitimacy and for its right to be free of external coercion, whether it takes the form of legal sanctions or a forced “cure.”

All right, yes. Fish states that he is looking specifically at the structure of the arguments used to justify “different”—not “normal”—-behaviors and practice. He discusses deaf culture as an example of a “minority community” that has to some extent defined and therefore empowered itself by “celebrating” how and why it is different. But where does “difference” blur into “deviance”? At what point, Fish writes, does allowing for different behaviors lead to potentially harmful acts?

I think this is a relevant question to ask in view of recent examples of excluding autistic children: A restraining order was filed against the parents of 13-year-old Adam Race because of his “dangerous” behaviors in church. 5-year-old Alex Barton was “voted out” of his kindergarten class by his fellow students in the wake of numerous behavior issues (which might have been addressed had Alex been receiving more services—perhaps a 1:1 aide to help him focus). Both Adam and Alex have (Alex more recently) diagnoses that put them on the autism spectrum. And the question was asked more than once: Where is the line to be drawn, between the “rights” of an autistic individual, and other people’s sense of what is “appropriate” and “accepted”? I don’t think the answer is as simple as saying “200 pound non-verbal severely autistic individuals” are potentially “dangerous,” while younger autistic children — still little enough to be carried — are allowed “so long as” they act in nearly normal ways.

Fish, however, goes from discussing diversity in terms of race, sexual orientation, and disability, to considering “polygamy, drug use, pedophilia or murder” and makes too vast a generalization about the politics of difference and self-empowerment. By mentioning all of the following in one sentence as various types of “difference”—”autism, deafness, blackness, gayness, polygamy, drug use, pedophilia or murder”—Fish’s argument becomes no more than an observation about a kind of rhetorical strategy that says little about the real, lived experience of real people. I was frankly troubled to see “autism” in a sentence with “pedophilia,” especially in regard to stories like this and this, and to the very real fears and worries that parents have to take to protect disabled children. There are huge differences here.

If Fish cannot see the difference about autism and disability— speaking up for the rights of autistic persons and the need for more societal understanding about disability, then his argument is only an academic one without a basis in understanding that difference is something very real and lived for an autistic individual.

There is no prenatal genetic test for autism; there has been speculation that, as research into the genetics of autism develops, such a test might be created. Back in June of 2006, a team of doctors at University College Hospital in London—in view of the fact that autism is diagnosed in boys at a much higher rate than in girls—announced that they hoped to develop a test to screen for autism in male embryos for couples with a family history of autism. The test would use Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD), which screens embryos by taking a single cell from an early stage embryo; embryos with defective genes are discarded.

But how reliable are genetic and other prenatal tests for gender? Today’s Eye on DNA offers a thoughtful overview of the reliability of gender test kits (that cost $300 and even less) that analyze a mother’s blood for fetal DNA; Dr. Hsien Hsien Lei offers some tips for choosing a reputable genetic testing company and quotes William Saletan in Slate:

Notice how the new transforms the old. What’s old is sex selection: choosing whether to abort your fetus based on whether it’s a boy or a girl. What’s new is the combination of ease, safety, and privacy with which you can now do this deed.

And what’s necessary is to get out the message that life with an autistic child (with mine, at any rate) might just be too good to miss out on.

Autism does change everything I wrote last Friday—-looking over the topics of last week’s posts, it seems that a little bit of everything from lipstick to sushi to communication notebooks to psychoanalysis to services for autistic adults to fictional mercury-based substances to how many girls have autism was discussed.

• Yes, No, Brown Noodles!
  On the uses of “yes” and “no” and why there’s nothing like a big bowl of shrimp chow fun.
• Toxic Mom
  Once “refrigerator mothers” were blamed for causing a child to become autistic—-now are “toxic mothers” (who’ve been using too much bismuth-containing lipstick and face make-up) the culprits?
• Looking Ahead: CT Pilot Program for Autistic Adults
  A $1 million pilot program for autistic adults was launched in New Haven, CT, in July of 2006 and currently serves 28 people, among whom is 47-year-old Jonathan Ross, who was only recently diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and also 24-year-old Shannon McEvoy, who received services throughout her education and is now “trying to figure out what she might do.”
• Stealth Autism
  You don’t “catch” autism though understanding autism—-seeing that a child is autistic—-can happen slowly, stealthily, and then (for me at least) one day you realize, it’s not a catastrophe, not at all.
• It Shouldn’t Happen But…
  A teacher’s assistant, Christopher Blansett of Baldwinsville, NY, is accused of slappig a 13-year-old autistic student and has been placed on administrative leave.
• Thimerasol Is Not a Primary Cause of Autism and Neither Is Mercuritol (Except, Maybe, on ABC)
  ABC is airing a new legal drama, Eli Stone, on January 31st: In the first episode of Eli Stone the former Pharma now “fights for the underdog” lawyer sues his old client on behalf of a mother who believes that, yes, her son became autistic from a vaccine containing the mercury-based preservative thimerasol, which is instead referred to as “mercuritol.”
• Is Autism Underdiagnosed in Girls and Women?
  ABC’s Nightline airs a special report on girls with autism: “In a surprising twist, correspondent John Donvan and producer Caren Zucker talk to several researchers and psychologists who believe there are actually more girls with autism in the U.S. than diagnosed.”
• So Much To Talk About
  Good parent-teacher communication is essential in a school program for kids like Charlie, who struggle to talk and to otherwise communication.
• Iowa Mother Tried to Kill Autistic Son Before Taking Her Own Life
  Investigators have determined that Sheila Tegtmeier, who was found dead in her Ankeny, Iowa, home on January 4th, tried to strangle her 20-year-old autistic son, Rory Jr., before taking her own life.
• Sushi Scare?
  My son Charlie, as I’ve noted more than a few times, loves sushi. So has my worry quotient gone up in light of the recent reports about high mercury levels in tuna sushi?
• Autism Does Change Everything
  ’m not sure if Autism Speaks co-founder Suzanne Wright chose the title of “Autism Changes Everything” for her article in today’s Parade magazine; I suppose the title can be seen as referring to the changes (loss of speech, behavior issues) that Wright saw happen in her grandson. There’s another way to understand the notion of “autism changing everything”: Unlike Wright, I don’t think that autism took my son in its “grip” and turned him into some wholly other child like the changeling stolen by trolls in a folk tale.
• Therapy Moms and Psychoanalysis (for autistic children)
  Martha R. Herbert, M.D., Ph.D., of the Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, uses the phrase to describe mothers of autistic children in an article on WebMD (CBS News) about why psychoanalysis should be part of the treatment for autistic children. And New York city psychoanalyst Susan P. Sherkow, MD, says that psychoanalysis can help parents understand the “‘meaning of what these children are trying to convey.”

ABC’s Nightline is airing a special on girls with autism tonight, on ABC News World News with Charles Gibson at 6:30pm (ET) and on Nightline, Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 11:35pm (ET/PT). Aspie Dad posts a summary:  

…in a surprising twist, correspondent John Donvan and producer Caren Zucker talk to several researchers and psychologists who believe there are actually more girls with autism in the U.S. than diagnosed. Not only may there be many under-diagnosed girls, according to these experts, but some girls with autism may be assigned some other diagnosis. In fact these girls are often being under-diagnosed or diagnosed with something else. The researchers believe that many of the symptoms are being missed, or that they are just more subtle in girls. Nightline takes an in-depth look at how girls and boys are brought up culturally, and how these differences could contribute to a misdiagnosis in girls, resulting in the harsh reality that we just don’t know how many cases of girls with autism really exist.

While it’s been awhile since there was a girl in Charlie’s autism classroom, the more I have learned about autism, the more I have realized how many past and current women I know are very likely on the autism spectrum. There are friends from grad school (some of whom did not get their degrees and seemed more than loathe to leave the security of being in school; some of whom fretted over their inability to finish the requirements for their degrees and hung around, or who struggled at job interviews and moved from one temporary position to the next). There’s the girl from my childhood who refused to wear wool sweaters and to talk in class, who used a video dating service and was always dissatisfied with her job until, after getting downsized and going back to school to become a technical writer, found work she excelled at and that she liked.

And I’m sure there are many more.

Go here to read ABC’s report on autism in girls.