Off the Spectrum: Why the Science of Autism Has Failed Women and Girls

Almost to a fault, they were among the most thoughtful and self-aware people I have ever met.

‘You can’t be autistic, you’re female’; ‘Girls don’t get autism’; or ‘You’ve got friends and make eye contact, you can’t be autistic’.

Every social encounter would be a what-if event and all their energies would be focussed on diverting social disaster.

If sounds and smells and lights are more attention-grabbing, it is difficult to focus on the more subtle social niceties. This would fit in with the traditional picture of autism, where sensory information is much more likely to grab the autistic person’s attention (or sensory overload much more likely to elicit social avoidance behaviour).

Neuroscientists have proposed that the increase in NSSIs in adolescence is related to increased neural sensitivity to real or perceived social threats, which

We now know that the passive, shy façade might well be disguising potent levels of distress.

Additionally, it may be that a lifetime of disguising yourself means you haven’t a clear sense of your own identity, so you aren’t sure where you should or want to fit anyway.

Elizabeth Pellicano, a leader in this movement, calls ‘experience-based expertise’.

even have to actually happen. Just the anticipation of what might happen, what sounds you might encounter, what social rules you might break would be enough to trigger your alarm.