Diferencias de género y su incidencia en las guías para el diagnóstico de los trastornos del espectro autista

Abstract

This paper investigates the consideration of gender differences in the establishment of the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. It is investigated around the social and cognitivebehavioral system, which suggests the existence of a problem in the detection of autism in women, either by the lack of support in their difficulties, the pressure against the expectations within the gender, the innocent and limited social understanding, the lack of a range of social resources, the search for belonging and similarity with the rest and the gender bias in the criteria to establish the diagnosis, making them an easy target for abuse of all kinds, exclusion, discrimination, stress, rejection, risk of developing emotional and/or psychological problems, placing them on the way to receive a wrong diagnosis or lack of one. The research aims to identify gender differences in the symptomatology of patients diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, to determine the diagnostic criteria with the highest incidence of gender bias in defining the disease and to evaluate the gender distinction in the development of comorbidities associated with the disorder. The work was carried out jointly with 10 professionals with experience in the diagnosis of ASD, a non-experimental cross-sectional design and a mixed approach were used, structured interviews were applied and a bibliographic review was carried out to gather information and visualize the problem. The results obtained indicate a high prevalence in boys with ASD, compared with the low number of girls correctly diagnosed with the disorder, gender influences were also found in the identification of the symptomatology, indicating that in girls who do not present cognitive impairment the disorder usually goes unnoticed and results that indicate a better prognosis for girls with autism