The Lost Girls of Autism
Sunday, May 25th, 2025 | Books
The Lost Girls of Autism: How Science Failed Autistic Women and the New Research that’s Changing the Story is a cognitive neuroscience book by Gina Rippon. It looks at the gender disprepenacy in autism. Previously, it was thought that it was mostly a “boy thing” with a 4:1 ratio. But increasingly, this difference is disappearing, and this book likes at why.
The two key issues the book identifies is that because it was thought of as a boy thing early on, researchers were mostly looking at boys, as well as girls that confirmed to a traditional male presentation. Women and girls who presented in a female way or non-traditional way were not spotted. Then the criteria and the standardised tests were developed on mostly male populations reinforcing the gender gap.
The second issue is that girls typically engage more on camouflaging and masking. Whereas boys will act out very visible behavioural differences, girls will typically internalise their struggles. This means they don’t display the same outward characteristics of boys but still have the same struggles. As a result of these internal struggles, they are often given a variety of labels such as anxiety, social anxiety, borderline personality disorder and basically almost anything other than the correct one: autism.
Women, regardless of neurotype, typically have more highly developed social skills than boys and are socialised to be more empathic. Autistic girls, like neurotypical girls, often feel a greater need to fit in, speeding more time modelling, writing social scripts, and practising social interactions in front of the mirror.
Having outlined all of this, the book dives into what neuroscience can tell us. I found this hard going without a neuroscience background but some of the possible models of autism that neuroscience is developing are interesting.
The Lost Girls of Autism: How Science Failed Autistic Women and the New Research that’s Changing the Story is a cognitive neuroscience book by Gina Rippon. It looks at the gender disprepenacy in autism. Previously, it was thought that it was mostly a “boy thing” with a 4:1 ratio. But increasingly, this difference is disappearing, and this book likes at why.
The two key issues the book identifies is that because it was thought of as a boy thing early on, researchers were mostly looking at boys, as well as girls that confirmed to a traditional male presentation. Women and girls who presented in a female way or non-traditional way were not spotted. Then the criteria and the standardised tests were developed on mostly male populations reinforcing the gender gap.
The second issue is that girls typically engage more on camouflaging and masking. Whereas boys will act out very visible behavioural differences, girls will typically internalise their struggles. This means they don’t display the same outward characteristics of boys but still have the same struggles. As a result of these internal struggles, they are often given a variety of labels such as anxiety, social anxiety, borderline personality disorder and basically almost anything other than the correct one: autism.
Women, regardless of neurotype, typically have more highly developed social skills than boys and are socialised to be more empathic. Autistic girls, like neurotypical girls, often feel a greater need to fit in, speeding more time modelling, writing social scripts, and practising social interactions in front of the mirror.
Having outlined all of this, the book dives into what neuroscience can tell us. I found this hard going without a neuroscience background but some of the possible models of autism that neuroscience is developing are interesting.
