A new study by a team at Stanford University School of Medicine reveals that girls and boys diagnosed with autism behave differently. The team discovers that girls with the condition display less repetitive and restricted behavior than boys.
The researchers say that a difference in their brains help explain the discrepancy between the sexes.
The findings represent the best evidence to date that boys and girls display the developmental disorder differently.
“We wanted to know which specific clinical manifestations of autism show significant gender differences, and whether patterns in the brain's gray matter could explain behavioral differences. Knowledge of the difference could help clinicians better recognize and treat autism in both sexes. Understanding this is really quite crucial clinically,” said Vinod Menon, the study's senior author.
Co-author, Dr Kaustubh Supekar, added: "We found strong evidence for gender differences in autism."
The researchers examined nearly 800 children with high-functioning forms of autism in the US.
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Boys outnumber girls by four to one, among children diagnosed with the high-functioning form of autism.
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Source-Medindia