Nightline: “'Underdiagnosed' Girls With Autism Struggle to Fit In”

Kaeda Sakai is an eight year-old girl with autism. Through her story, ABC’s Nightline program explores the issue of under diagnosed girls with autism. These girls face difficulties unknown to the average child and misunderstood by the average adult. Unlike their male peers, their symptoms are often explained away as simply being a part of what makes them female. They are “drama queens” or just socially inept when really they show signs of a much greater problem. By remaining undiagnosed, they miss the opportunity to receive the assistance that could help make their lives both easier and more enjoyable. This story tries to understand what makes “girl autism” so different, and how this affects the diagnosis of the girls and young women who live with it every day.

As a young woman, it is not hard for me to relate to difficulties that come with trying to decode the social workings of young girls. They are a group that can be both welcoming and off-putting at the same time, and they require acute attention to social cues and interactions. For a girl with autism not wired to interpret these cues, the effects must be socially devastating. For a young man to be anti-social might be seen as atypical but acceptable; for a young woman, it is unheard of. These young girls with autism are automatically at such a disadvantage with their peers that it must be devastating. A diagnosis could lead to some treatment and an understanding that could only help. On the other side, would the stigma of being a girl with autism only cause more trouble or other issues?

This video discusses the idea that many girls go undiagnosed because they are taught the social skills necessary to pass the diagnostic examinations. They are so developed in this area that only highly trained professionals can really recognize the signs of autism. Is this a form of passing even in young children? Are they taught at such a young age what is acceptable and not that they can hide their disability long enough to remain undiagnosed?

While it is not plausible to think that an eight year-old girl would purposefully try to fool anyone so that she could avoid being diagnosed, it is plausible to think that she has been trained to please adults and so she would try her hardest to do so. Kaeda’s case is special because her parents already had two autistic sons and were therefore better prepared to look for signs of autism in her; the average parent does not have the background knowledge needed to recognize the signs of such higher-functioning forms of autism.

Overall, I believe this article served its purpose. It managed to explain through one benchmark case just why young girls are underdiagnosed with autism. It did not try to understand why girls and boys behave differently with autism or the nature of autism at all. It even acknowledged that it did not answer the question of the difference between “girl autism” and “boy autism.” By doing so, the story was able to focus on what it really wanted to explain, and to tell the story well. The human aspect of this story was what counted, not the science behind it or anything else.