Summary: At the time of the initial diagnosis, a comprehensive analysis of over 2,500 toddlers found no discernible medical differences between males and females in terms of disabled traits. The study, which was conducted over the course of 20 years, used thorough examinations of social behaviors, mental traits, motor skills, and speech.
According to parent reports, there was only a small improvement in female daily living skills. These studies point to the possibility that gender disparities in dementia may develop more recently than at the onset of symptoms.
Important Information:
- No sex differences in first ages: Autistic toddlers had scientific profiles that remained the same regardless of sex.
- Just One Significant Exception: Depending on the parent’s reports, females had significantly higher scores in everyday living skills.
- In terms of language and social skills, woman toddlers without dementia outperformed males.
Origin: UCSD
Guys are four times more likely than women to be diagnosed with autism.
However, a recent study by researchers at the University of California School of Medicine found no medical differences between the sexes in child when they are first identified with autism.
On May 26, 2025, the study was published in Nature Animal Behavior. The results have possible implications for autism children’s early diagnosis and treatment.
More than 2, 500 male and female child between the ages of 12 and 48 months were surveyed by the experts between 2002 and 2022. 1, 500 of these child were disabled, 600 were typically developing, and 475 were mentally delayed.
19 various tests were used to evaluate language development, cultural and motor skills, base autism characteristics like recurring behaviors, cognitive skills, and other developmental traits.
Additionally, the study looked at social interest using eye tracking technology. The UC San Diego Autism Center of Excellence and the  were the only sites where qualified medical psychology conducted all assessments.
The experts discovered:
- On all but one of the indicators, there are no scientific differences between disabled males and females. The only thing that stood out was a family reporting test for daily living skills growth, which females scored only slightly higher than males for getting dressed and taking their own food.
- There were no significant scientific distinctions between males and females within these types when clustered into small, medium, and high-ability types across the autism range based on solid state-of-the-art methods.
- When the experts followed the developmental trajectory of disabled child over time, there were no scientific differences between the sexes between 12 and 48 months.
- There are few gender disparities between toddlers who are developing more slowly.
There have been differences between the sexes in disabled child in a number of previous research with fewer than 100 individuals.
According to senior author Karen Pierce, Ph. D., the current study is the largest and most comprehensive of its kind to date, and it is also one of the few studies to examine children with autism very young. Dr., chairman of the Autism Center of Excellence at UC San Diego School of Medicine and professor of physiology.
There isn’t a consensus in the field about whether women are more or less affected than boys, which is likely because there haven’t been many studies done at the very early stages of development, according to Pierce.
We had anticipated there would be some intercourse variations based on previous little research. So we were a much surprised to discover nothing at all.
However, the researchers did discover sex differences between generally developing female and male child. More than half of the tests, particularly those evaluating social skills, language development, and daily life skills, were measured by ladies performing substantially higher scores than men.
According to Pierce,” Adult toddlers seem to grow significantly faster than males in terms of their vocabulary and social skills, and how well they can perform daily living skills, which are dynamic things for a two-year-old,” according to Pierce.
In contrast to guys, usually developing females develop more quickly than males.
Two possible conclusions can be drawn, according to Pierce, based on research on disabled children showing no scientific differences between males and females at the time of autism’s initial beginning.
One of the reasons why earlier studies that examined sex differences are incorrect is that they may have had a small sample size, sampling bias, minimal study controls, or other scientific issues, she said.
” An choice conclusion is that sex differences do not occur at the time of the initial onset, but instead develop gradually over time, fueled by psychosocial factors like socializing or biological differences that may develop over time,” says one author.
A high-quality, extensive investigation that follows disabled children from toddlerhood through high college age and above would be required, according to Pierce, in order to analyze this other possibility.
Because of the high heritability of dementia, Pierce believes the findings have important implications for better understanding how the situation develops, promoting early detection, and promoting early intervention.
She believes it might be easier to concentrate on these differences when attempting to understand medical heterogeneity and the most suitable interventions for each subtype because the study found that toddlers with autism clustered into statistically robust subtypes within the autism spectrum rather than by sex.
When you can make a child’s language and communication as young as possible, they will get their needs met better, and they will be able to contribute to world more efficiently, according to Pierce.
” It’s actually about ensuring that every child realizes their whole potential.”
First artist Sanaz Nazari, next senior author Eric Courchesne, Sara Ramos Cabo, Srinivasa Nalabolu, Cynthia Carter Barnes, Charlene Andreason, Javad Zahiri, Ahtziry Esquivel, Steven J. Arias, Andrea Grzybowski, Linda Lopez, all of whom are both from UC San Diego School of Medicine, and Michael V. Lombardo from Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia.
Funding: The study was funded, in part, by National Institutes of Mental Health ( grants R01MH118879, R01MH080134, R01MH10446, R01MH121595, P50-MH081755, R01MH110558, R01DC016385 ).
About this information from Autsim studies
Susanne Bard, the artist
Source: UCSD
Contact: Susanne Bard – UCSD
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Open access to original analysis
” Large-scale analysis of early-age gender differences in dyslexic child and those with autism spectrum disorder or other development circumstances” by Karen Pierce et cetera. Human behaviour in essence
Abstract
Large-scale research into early-age gender differences in dyslexic toddlers and those with autism spectrum disorder or other developmental disorders
With ongoing discussions about phenotypic differences between boys and girls, autism spectrum disorder ( ASD ) is clinically heterogeneous.
Understanding these variations is crucial for advancing early diagnosis, discovering causal systems, and improving treatments, especially at the time of the first symptom onset.
We used statistical and machine learning techniques to analyze sex differences between groups with ASD, developmental delay, and typical development across standardized and experimental measures, including eye tracking, to use the Get SET Early program to analyze a group of 2, 618 baby ( mean time: 27 months ).
The findings showed no discernible sex differences between toddlers with dementia across 17 of 18 different criteria, including autism clinical study schedule, expressive and sympathetic language, Mullen Scales of early learning, and cultural attention measured by the GeoPref eye-tracking test.
In contrast, girls with typical development performed better on a number of fronts than boys.
Similar to this, subtyping analyses that classified toddlers into low, medium, and high clusters found that there were hardly any sex differences in ASD.
Overall, our findings suggest that there are little to no phenotypic sex differences between those with ASD at the time of the first symptom onset.
