why is it that more boys are suffering from autism compared to girls?

Answer 1

Many people with Asperger's would object to the term "suffering."

There is apparently a STRONG genetic component to autism so there could be a genetic factor. Some believe it isn't just one or two genes but as many as 5 or 7 genes "colliding" to create a potential for autism. If one of the genes is recessive & on the X chromosome (like with colorblindness,) that could account for the higher number of boys with autism.

Dr Geri Dawson of the M.I.N.D. Institute suspects there is an entirely different gene that causes girls to be autistic than boys. I find that hard to believe considering my brother had two kids with autism - one a boy & one a girl.

Most learning disabilities are more common in boys than girls. Usually at the rate of 4 to 1.

Answer 2

"Autism affects far more boys than girls. At the Asperger's end of the spectrum, the ratio is about 10 to 1."

There appear to be two main possibilities.

Either this is a genuine sex-linked condition, or affected females are more likely to pass undetected, not having the same degree of expression of the condition even if the inherited genetic factors are equivalent.

I find Simon Baron-Cohen's hypothesis of "the extreme male brain" convincing enough to see why he wants to pursue it.
See article below, with a place to take the EQ SQ tests yourself, and see how the the results are averaging.

I found both of these while considering my own case, and it did lead to a formal diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome by one of Baron-Cohen's team in Cambridge.

And do I suffer from it?
At the level I experience it, I don't want a cure, if it means giving up what's made me what I am. But I fully admit I'm not "normal". I've known that for forty years, but it's only in the last two I've known why.

Answer 3

Firstly, don't use the term suffering! Virtually every autistic (myself included) despises the term. You don't have to use person-first language (person with autism) either, since autism is a neurological configuration that defines me more than anything else.

While I have read that autistics are more commonly male than female, I have also read that female autistics are usually "lower-functioning" (in quotes because I don't believe in the dichotomy of low and high functioning). I doubt that the incidence is really that different between the genders. Boys in most areas are still given more freedom to be themselves, whereas girls are expected from a young ages to "be a lady," which involves having proper manners, which in turn involves at least being able to pretend to be non-autistic. Therefore, autistic girls are taught from a very young age to pretend to be normal and are usually able to escape notice and it is only the autistic females who are unable to fake NT who end up diagnosed as young children. Autistic boys are given more freedom to be themselves, and usually noticed earlier. Among autistics diagnosed later in life, there is not as much of a difference in numbers between males and females.

Note that I don't think that female autistics being taught to fake NT in order to be a lady is a good thing. It's very harmful to those of us on the spectrum to have our true selves invalidated and be forced to pretend to be someone more "normal."