Emily Bazelon’s article about girls and autism reminds me of eating at a greasy-spoon diner when you’re out in the middle of nowhere: it’s not that it’s particularly good, but there’s not a lot of alternatives.
Bazelton does (briefly) note that girls may go undiagnosed until later in life than boys because they are better to ‘hide’ their problem, although she doesn’t seem to figure out that this may have an effect on whether they are ever diagnose, much less on whether this affects prognosis. Worse, she seems utterly clueless about the fact that Asperger Syndrome and autism are not synonymous, and uses the terms interchangeably; we have no idea whether the numbers she tosses out apply to all forms of autism, or whether she’s talking about ‘classic’ autism (of whatever functionality) vs. autism-spectrum disorders like Aspergers or PDD. And while it’s Federally-mandated to quote Simon Baron-Cohen in any mainstream article about autism, that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
I suppose it’s something that she’s not going on about girls with autism disorders having “boy brains”.
mythago
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