This is the third installment on my visual “take” on Diagnosing/Recognising High Functioning Autism in Adult Females: Challenging Stereotypes
Thus, when considered together, it is apparent that one, often overlooked group of individuals with ASD, are female adults with HFA [“High-Functioning Autism”]. This may be because women with HFA are at greater risk of missed diagnosis, or being mis-diagnosed [18]. Indeed, they are less easily identifiable diagnostically because they are able to adopt a range of strategies to mask and compensate for the challenges they face, thereby “camouflaging” themselves and leaving little observable evidence to those in their company.
Indeed for women with an underlying, undiagnosed HFA who present at mental health services, the primary focus for treatment and intervention can often be placed on what we see as a surface level presentation of, for example, acute Social Anxiety, OCD, Major Depressive Disorder, or Personality Disorder, with the HFA overshadowed and disguised from sight [19]. This has important clinical implications for the efficacy of support for this often overlooked group of individuals: the foundation of successful treatment/intervention is built upon an accurate diagnosis, which necessitates a true understanding of the HFA phenotype in adult females [20].
Read the full paper: Diagnosing/Recognising High Functioning Autism in Adult Females: Challenging Stereotypes
Citation: Evans-Williams CVM (2016) Diagnosing/Recognising High Functioning Autism in Adult Females: Challenging Stereotypes. Autism Open Access 6:179. doi:10.4172/2165-7890.1000179
Copyright: © 2016 Evans-Williams CVM. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
