Guardian UK: Doctors are 'failing to spot Asperger's in girls'

[friendly_iconoclast]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/12/autism-aspergers-girls/print

Doctors are 'failing to spot Asperger's in girls'

It is a condition on the autistic spectrum that has long been known to affect boys, who may have obsessive interests or struggle to make friends. Now an expert says many more girls have it than was thought, and failure to diagnose them can lead to misery and self-harm. Amelia Hill reports

Amelia Hill The Observer, Sunday 12 April 2009

Doctors are failing to diagnose thousands of girls who have Asperger's syndrome, according to one of the world's leading experts. Dr Judith Gould has accused the medical world of missing and overlooking girls with the condition, condemning them to lives of such misery that many resort to extreme self-harm and anorexia.

Gould and her colleague, Lorna Wing, carried out ground-breaking research into the link between Asperger's syndrome, autism and other pervasive developmental disorders in 1979. Exploiting that insight, they pioneered the concept of the autism spectrum. Now Gould, a chartered consultant clinical psychologist with more than 35 years' experience in autism spectrum disorders, has called on the government for a packet of measures to help girls with Asperger's.

Gould, who is director of the National Autistic Society's Lorna Wing centre for autism and co-founder of the Centre for Social and Communication Disorders, said: "We're failing girls at the moment. We are doing many thousands of them a great disservice. They are either not being picked up in the first place, but if they ask for help they are being turned away. Even if they are referred for diagnosis, they are commonly rejected."