The finding comes from new research from a team at the UC San Diego School of Medicine.
It is a well-known fact that men are more likely to receive an autism diagnosis than women. Currently, the concrete reason as to why remains unknown, however new research from a team at the UC San Diego School of Medicine suggests gender may have nothing to do with the matter.
Especially among toddlers. The research, which was published in the online journal Nature Human Behavior, analysed over 2,500 toddlers aged between 12 and 48 months.
From the group, 1,500 had been diagnosed with autism, 600 were developing at a ‘standard’ rate and 475 were considered to be developmentally delayed.
When conducting the research, experts examined factors such as language progress, and social skills while core autism traits including repetitive behaviours and cognitive skills were also looked into.
The findings, according to Karen Pierce, professor of neurosciences and director of the Autism Centre of Excellence at UC San Diego School of Medicine, left the researchers ‘surprised’. Particularly at what they had uncovered about sexes and autistic traits.
‘There is no consensus in the field about whether females are more or less impacted than males, and that is probably because there haven’t been really large-scale studies at the earliest ages,’ Professor Pierce said. ‘Based on previous small studies, we had anticipated there would be some sex differences. So we were a little bit surprised to find nothing at all.’
‘Previous studies that report sex differences are wrong, perhaps due to small sample size, sampling bias, limited study measures or other methodological issues,’ she continued.
‘An alternative conclusion is that sex differences do not exist at the time of first onset, but instead emerge slowly at later ages, driven by psychosocial factors like socialisation or differences in biology that may unfold across development.’
In contrast, the researchers did highlight some gender differences among the group comprised of neurotypical toddlers. They found females were performing at significantly higher levels than males on more than half the tests.
‘This is consistent with literature; female toddlers seem to develop slightly faster than males in terms of their language ability and their social ability and how well they perform daily living skills – adaptive things for a two-year-old,’ Professor pierce added. ‘Typically developing females are accelerated in their development relative to males.’
The study, which can be accessed in full here, is the largest and most comprehensive to its size within the subject area. Previously, there have been smaller reports however, they have only included fewer than 100 participants.
Going forward, Professor Pierce explains the study’s results could change the way we view the development of autism as children grow older. She concluded: ‘If you can improve a toddler’s language and communication at the youngest age possible, then they’re going to get their needs met better, and they’re going to be able to contribute to society more effectively, because they can do whatever it is that they love to do.’
Photo by Trust “Tru” Katsande
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