Why is aspergers diagnosed so late

They come to our clinic in young adulthood or even middle age, and they tell us a now-familiar story. All through their school years they had trouble making friends or fitting in. Many were bullied by the other children, both physically and verbally.

This is the title of her excellent book. The lucky ones managed to stay in school long enough to get their SATs, and some got to university. But not without feeling their teens were an uphill struggle. By young adulthood many had suffered clinical depression and even felt suicidal.

All because their underlying condition of AS had gone unrecognized and therefore unsupported. Some of them had enjoyed the closeness of an intimate relationship only for this to break down. Some had found employment only for them to run into problems in the work place through not understanding what the employer and other staff might expect of them, or through getting into conflict, or being passed over for promotion because of their lack of team skills.

In other cases, the children themselves gradually truanted, because the lessons seemed pointless. Why were they forced to study subjects like English or broad subjects like Geography, when all they wanted to do was pursue a narrow topic in depth? Sadly, these unlucky ones left school by 15 years old, with no qualifications on paper, and many have been unemployed for long periods if not continuously, ever since.

And then — somehow — they heard that AS exists. Four times as many boys and men are diagnosed with autism than women and girls, but the reasons are not clear. Are girls really less likely to be autistic? Or are their behaviors apparent shyness, discomfort with public speaking, difficulties with motor coordination, confusion over social communication in situations such as team sports considered "feminine" rather than problematic? Or do girls with high-functioning autism actually behave differently from boys with autism, tending to be less aggressive, more imitative, and more likely to work hard to "fit in"?

A study suggests that females are genetically "immune" to some of the symptoms of autism a concept referred to as the "female protective effect". The theory suggests that symptoms of autism manifest differently in women and girls and that females tend to demonstrate better functional social behavior compared to males with autism. While the reasons are not well understood, it seems clear that being a a female on the autism spectrum may make you less likely to receive a diagnosis. There seem to be two major reasons for this disparity.

The first and most obvious is that people with less money have less access to behavioral health care—and so are less likely to receive services, particularly for a child who is not obviously autistic. This translates to lower rates of autism diagnoses as well as poorer outcomes for autistic children who are diagnosed. The second reason seems to relate to cultural differences: In some communities, the behaviors associated with high-functioning autism are not considered to be particularly problematic.

And, of course, for recent immigrants, it's not surprising to hear that their child is not fitting in perfectly with American cultural norms. If you think your child—or you—may be on the autism spectrum, your healthcare provider or a mental healthcare professional can give you information on how to be evaluated. Many people who are diagnosed later in life may have had many challenges throughout their lives and struggled to find acceptance. Getting an official diagnosis can open the doors to understanding, therapies, and support that would not otherwise be available.

Research suggests that one in four people with autism are not diagnosed. Factors that make it more likely for the diagnosis to be missed include being of a race other than white and not having an intellectual disability.

Signs of high functioning autism in adults include:. A neuropsychologist typically diagnoses autism. If you suspect you have autism, talk to your healthcare provider about getting a referral to a neuropsychologist.

Sign up for our Health Tip of the Day newsletter, and receive daily tips that will help you live your healthiest life. Autism Speaks. But they can delay an autism diagnosis if practitioners and parents stop there. Miodovnik is the lead researcher on a study of autistic children, published in Pediatrics , which linked an initial diagnosis of ADHD to a delay of three years, on average, in the autism diagnosis. Children who had first been diagnosed with ADHD were nearly 30 times more likely to receive their autism diagnosis after age 6 than those for whom autism was their first diagnosis.

The study confirmed Dr. Catherine Lord, PhD, the director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, has a similar concern that an early focus on sensory issues, while it may help kids some, may be delaying autism diagnoses.

To avoid delays, parents should be aware of them. Nash urges parents of young children who suspect that they may be on the autism spectrum to make sure they get a full assessment by a professional who is trained and experienced in diagnosing the disorder—a pediatric psychiatrist, neurologist, or developmental pediatrician. And if as parents you feel the diagnosis is still incorrect or inadequate to explain the behavior you see, you may want to seek out another opinion. It can be tempting to accept the efforts of friends, family, and even clinicians to avoid a label that can be scary, but a wait-and-see approach is not a good idea if autism is a possibility.

Get this as a PDF. She also has mild cerebral palsy, which manifests itself in spasms in her ankles, knees and wrists. She is a para-athlete whose specialism is the m, and has a punishing training schedule. She wears a vintage Bowie T-shirt, has a wood-cut picture of the Yorkshire town of Whitby tattooed on her right arm, and is a prolific and waspish presence on Twitter. She grew up in Nidderdale in the Yorkshire dales and now lives in Leeds.

Being clever and being a supposedly interesting person, but never able to maintain friendships and always, inexplicably, saying something wrong. Autism among women and girls is only starting to be properly understood. But I would try to copy other people, how they talked and acted. Neighbours and Home And Away. In the end, teenage etiquette and the nastiness that often comes with it proved too much.

They exclude each other, and pretend to be friends with each other, as a game. It kills you because you take it seriously. All of that happened. She has been married to her husband, Emil, for 11 years. I can feel it too much. Plenty of non-autistic people have issues with that, I say, myself included. When it comes to understanding autism, how much does she think the world still needs to change? I have one last question. When she meets autistic people who are, say, non-verbal, does she feel they are part of the same community?

From what I can observe, they are experiencing the same thing as me. I had a girlfriend at the time, and that was failing. I had a bit of a breakdown, and it took me a couple of years to get used to people. He started out on a new path as an artist. The work he does ranges across disciplines including sculpture and music, and regularly touches on his own story.

Among his most affecting works is a piece called My School Pen: an old-school fountain pen covered in spikes that perfectly evokes his struggles as a child. In , he was working on a project with a group of teenagers for a charity called the Foyer Federation. He wells up now. So to read those things on a page was emotional.