Swedish Study Finds Autism Is Often Diagnosed Later In Women

WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A large study from Sweden suggests that women and men are almost equally likely to be diagnosed with autism by adulthood, indicating that many girls may not be diagnosed at a young age and could be missing early support.

'More recent research, as well as common self-reported experiences of autistic women, suggest that the true ratio is less skewed and that current practices are failing to recognize autism in many women until later in life, if at all,' explained autism patient and advocate Anne Cary in an editorial accompanying the research published in the journal BMJ.

'This evidence seems to support the argument that systemic biases in diagnosis, rather than a true gap in incidence, underlie the commonly accepted 4:1 male-to-female ratio.'

Researchers studied 2.7 million children born in Sweden between 1985 and 2020. By 2022, about 2.8% of them had been diagnosed with autism. In early childhood, boys were far more likely than girls to receive an autism diagnosis. However, as the children grew older, this gap slowly closed. By the age of 20, women were nearly as likely as men to have been diagnosed with autism. The study was published in the BMJ.

Although autism diagnoses were much higher in boys during childhood, the difference between males and females almost disappeared by early adulthood. This suggests that autism may not be more common in males, but that girls and women are diagnosed later. The exact reason for this delay is still not clear.

One possible explanation, according to Cary, is that autistic traits may appear later in females. If this is true, it may mean that autism is not being missed in young girls but rather showing up at a later stage in life.

'Firstly, sex differences are likely in the presentation of autistic traits, especially in childhood. Secondly, informers (e.g., parents, teachers) and diagnosticians might expect female individuals to be less likely to be autistic and develop a bias against recognizing autistic traits in girls,' she explained.

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