Text written in Basque and translated automatically by Elia without any subsequent editing. SEE ORIGINAL

The number of women and men in autism is equal

Although until now autism was thought to be more common in men, a study in Sweden has shown that it is similar in women and men. In boys, it is diagnosed earlier, but with age the proportion between the sexes is equalized.

Until recently, the ratio of males to females was considered to be 4:1, and according to the latest data, it was estimated that it could be 3:1. In this study, data from more than 2.7 million people born in Sweden between 1985 and 2020, from birth to age 37, have been analyzed. Among them, more than 78,000 people were diagnosed with autism. Note that boys are usually diagnosed when they are 10-14 years old, five years earlier than girls. In children under 10 years of age, the number of boys diagnosed with autism is three times higher than that of girls. at 20 years old, the ratio is equal.

These results are consistent with the evidence found in other studies in recent years. In fact, this evidence shows that autism was underdiagnosed in women, especially in children and adolescents. “There are many intelligent girls and women with autism who do not identify themselves in childhood,” explained psychiatrist Joaquín Fuentes Biggi in the report “Autisms” published in the journal Elhuyar. “They tend to be more sociable and camouflage by imitation. This causes them a lot of tension and a lot of suffering, and they are often misdiagnosed, for example, as attention deficit disorder or simply as anxiety.”

Another reason, Amaia Lopetegui, director of Labayen Gautena, said: “There is a lot of evidence that diagnostic tests have a male spill. It is not taken into account that girls and women can express or hide autism in a different way, so their diagnosis is outside the criteria that contain this outbreak.”