Assessing autism in females: The importance of a sex-specific comparison.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is diagnosed more often in boys than girls. Here, we compared the degree of autism - and related disorders - symptomatology in boys and girls with a registered diagnosis of ASD. We used parent telephone interview A-TAC (Autism-Tics, ADHD and other Comorbidities) ratings of 30,392 twins aged 9 or 12 (including 308 boys and 122 girls with National Patient Register diagnoses of ASD) participating in the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden. We used z-scores for ASD-symptoms, standardized separately for boys and girls. Boys with a diagnosis of ASD had a higher raw mean score than girls with a diagnosis on the A-TAC ASD domain. However, utilizing the z-scores, girls with a diagnosis of ASD deviated further away from the female population mean than did the boys with ASD from the male population mean. Girls also had higher standardized mean values for symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Learning Disabilities and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. The findings suggest that girls diagnosed with autism may represent an even more extreme end of the female population autistic features distribution, than diagnosed boys from the male population autistic features distribution. Future studies may benefit from examining the use of sex-specific cut-off scores.
['Lundström|Sebastian|S|', 'Mårland|Caroline|C|', 'Kuja-Halkola|Ralf|R|', 'Anckarsäter|Henrik|H|', 'Lichtenstein|Paul|P|', 'Gillberg|Christopher|C|', 'Nilsson|Thomas|T|']
D000293:Adolescent D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity D019958:Attention Deficit and Disruptive Behavior Disorders D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder D002648:Child D015897:Comorbidity D005260:Female D006801:Humans D007859:Learning Disabilities D008297:Male D010290:Parents D012737:Sex Factors D013548:Sweden D014427:Twins
Autism spectrum disorder A-TAC Twins Population Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder Sex