Are You Autistic? Why Some People Don't Know

This article was co-written by Adeline Lacroix, who works with Fabienne Cazalis and was recently diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. A second year master's student in psychology, she is working on a scientific literature review about the characteristics of high-functioning autistic women. The description we'll give could be that of any woman who is on the autistic spectrum without knowing it. Because they're intelligent and used to compensating for communication impediments they may not be consciously aware of, these women slip through the cracks of our still-too-inefficient diagnostic procedures. Studies reveal one woman for every nine men is diagnosed with so-called "high-functioning" autism, that is, autism without intellectual disability. If we compare this to the one woman for every four men diagnosed with the more readily identified "low-functioning" autism, we can easily imagine many autistic women are left undiagnosed.