A new study by a team of researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine has revealed that girls and boys diagnosed with autism behave differently, attributed to the difference in their brains, Stanford Medicine reports.
It was found by researchers that girls diagnosed with autism show less repetitive and restricted behavior than boys.
The study was published online Sept. 3 in the journal Molecular Autism.
Professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences, Vinod Menon, the study's senior author, said,
'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 behavioural differences.
'Knowledge of the difference could help clinicians better recognise and treat autism in both sexes. 'Understanding this is really quite crucial clinically.'
For the study, the team relied on two public databases to study almost 800 children with high-functioning forms of autism in the US. Researchers examined the autism symptoms in 128 girls and 614 boys, registered with the National Database for Autism Research.
The children ranged in age from seven to 13, had IQ scores above 70. The girls and boys had similar scores for social behaviour and communication but girls had lower (more normal) scores of repetitive and restricted behaviours.
Co-author, Dr Kaustubh Supekar, added: 'We found strong evidence for gender differences in autism.'
The three core features of autism include repetitive and restricted behaviour , social deficits and communication problems.
Scientists compared the expression of core features of autism between the sexes, because they have long suspected girls with autism may display symptoms differently and may therefore remain under diagnosed.
Professor Menon said: 'Autism has primarily been studied from the viewpoint of boys with the disorder.
'Understanding gender differences can help in identifying the behavioural skills that are most important to remediate in girls vis-a-vis boys.'
The brain-scan analysis showed several gender differences in brain structure between boys and girls, consistent with the findings of earlier studies.
"Girls and boys with autism differ in their clinical and neurobiological characteristics, and their brains are patterned in ways that contribute differently to behavioral impairments," Menon said.
"The discovery of gender differences in both behavioral and brain measures suggests that clinicians may want to focus diagnosis and treatments for autistic girls differently than boys," Supekar added.
