Asperger's sufferers struggle to cope with more complex social demands

April 12, 2009

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It can be much harder for girls with asperger's to be taken seriously because

they internalise a lot of problems

Sunday, 12 April 2009

Tags: National News

Nicky e has two daughters, Lizzy, 14, who has Asperger's - sometimes called

" high-functioning autism " - and , 12, who also has autism.

" Lizzy's Asperger's gradually manifested itself through what happened to her at

school. We always knew she had definite characteristics at home - such as being

terrified of certain noises and materials - but we thought it was just Lizzy

being Lizzy. When she was at primary school, she blended into the background

with her peer group and her symptoms were less pronounced and more easily

masked, partly because the environment is more structured and the social demands

are a bit less.

" The symptoms of girls with Asperger's tend to emerge at about the age of 10, at

exactly the same time that their peer group becomes more sophisticated. Lizzy

couldn't cope with the complex social demands of her friends as they got older:

the cliques, the subtle conversation subtexts, the sarcasm and complex social

cues.

" Lizzy's diagnosis took 18 months. If she had thrown a chair across the

classroom, she would have got the help she needed from the start, but it can be

much harder for girls to be taken seriously by doctors because they internalise

a lot of problems. They don't present with the aggression you see in boys. Girls

are conditioned to be more socially compliant, so the onus is on them not to get

angry and to conform. Lizzy's diagnosis was still a lot quicker than many girls,

however, because her younger sister had already been diagnosed with a more

severe form of the condition.

" I think being on the autistic spectrum is especially difficult for girls.

Society has more expectations of how girls should behave, but girls with the

condition don't conform to that narrow female stereotype. People have shouted at

in the street for exhibiting symptoms of her condition. People on the

autistic spectrum don't suffer because of the condition; they suffer because

people don't understand how to treat them.

" The main emotion experienced by people with autism is fear. That is why they

show the negative behaviour that the rest of the world finds so unacceptable.

And that's why people need to be made more aware that this is a condition that

girls can have, and learn how to treat them in a way that doesn't scare or upset

them.'

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