Die extreme Theorie des männlichen Gehirns von Autismus legt nahe, dass Autismus eine Übertreibung der typischen männlichen kognitiven Merkmale von geringem Einfühlungsvermögen und hohem Systematisierungsgrad darstellt. Eine neue Studie legt nahe, dass Frauen eine höhere Belastung durch genetische oder umweltbedingte Faktoren benötigen, um die Schwelle für eine Autismusdiagnose zu erreichen.
The extreme male brain theory of autism applies more strongly to females
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The extreme male brain theory of autism applies more strongly to females
A recent study published in Autism Research suggests that the cognitive shifts associated with autism are significantly larger in females than in males. The findings provide evidence that females may need a greater biological push to develop autism, which helps explain why the condition is diagnosed much more frequently in boys. These insights clarify the psychological differences underlying the male-biased prevalence of autism spectrum disorder.
The extreme male brain theory of autism was originally proposed by psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen at the University of Cambridge. This theory suggests that autism represents an exaggeration of typical male cognitive traits. Specifically, it points to a profile of relatively low empathy, known as empathizing, and a high interest in analyzing or constructing rule-based structures, known as systemizing.
Some scientists suspect that a female protective effect exists. This concept suggests that females require a heavier load of genetic or environmental factors to reach the threshold for an autism diagnosis. If this protective effect is real, females diagnosed with autism should exhibit much more drastic cognitive shifts compared to their peers than males do.
In total, the analysis included 1,234,560 participants, comprising 757,726 females and 476,834 males. The sample featured both autistic individuals and neurotypical people, meaning those whose brain development aligns with typical standards. The researchers looked at three specific self-report measures used across these studies.
The researchers found that the gap in empathy and systemizing scores between autistic and neurotypical females is significantly wider than the gap between autistic and neurotypical males. In other words, an autistic female shows a much larger departure from the average female cognitive profile than an autistic male does from the average male profile. This provides evidence that a larger cognitive shift is involved in a female developing autism.
For those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aur.70198
a cursory read (a directed skimming to something i can find at fault) of the actual paper [here](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aur.70198) shows this is both a meta study, and seems to rely entirely on questionnaires for its data (although its nature as a meta study *does* mean theres like alotta allotaa data points) so if you want to not care about these findings feel free.
Autistic people are empathetic
Entire theory is hokum that just reifies gendered and ableist stereotypes due to vague associations between some common traits of autism and some common traits of men. Ignores that autism is often a constellation of traits, is often associated with traits that cannot be explained by „maleness“, and there’s the entire issue of inderdoagnosis among women due to different traits expressions.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8328919/
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article/286/1910/20191062/85244/Does-testosterone-impair-men-s-cognitive-empathy
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1750946718301417#:~:text=The%20lack%20of%20a%20cognitive,found%20in%20males%20and%20females.
There’s no explanatory power to the idea that autism is associated with „extreme male traits“, it’s at best a rhetorical flourish. It’s a great example of an incredibly successful, talented researcher who has supported incredibly important work on better understanding people with autism getting, as the kids say, lost in the sauce.