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Wellness Efforts for Autistic Women

  • Intellectual Disability (Y Lunsky, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

Although awareness of the substantial need for appropriate wellness efforts for adults with autism is growing, females with autism may have been under-identified in the past, and consequently, the research to date is largely based in a male-centric conceptualization of autism. The purpose of this narrative review was to ascertain what is known about wellness efforts for women with autism.

Recent Findings

Beyond the shared challenges as experienced by autistic men, autistic women may have unique and differing social, physical, and psychological wellness needs; however, there remains limited research to date in many areas of lifespan wellness concerns.

Summary

We emphasize the need for future autism and disability research to acknowledge and account for potential sex and gender impact across areas of study. Further acknowledgement of sex and gender impact will play an important role in improving clinicians’ capacity to identify autism in girls and women, which is a foundational component of many wellness efforts.

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Notes

  1. The terms “girls and women” refer to individuals who were assigned as female at birth based on biological sex characteristics, while recognizing that some may not self-identify with this gender. We also recognize that some people prefer “autistic person” or a “person on the (autism) spectrum,” rather than a “person with autism.” We use these terms interchangeably to encompass all of these ways of description.

  2. The term “sex/gender” is used to acknowledge the intersection of sex-specific biological and physiological characteristics with gendered socialization processes [14, 130].

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Funding

Part of this work is supported by funding from Women’s Xchange (to Meng-Chuan Lai and Yani Hamdani) and the University of Toronto, Department of Psychiatry Excellence Fund (to Meng-Chuan Lai and Stephanie H. Ameis).

Meng-Chuan Lai is additionally supported by the O’Brien Scholars Program within the Child and Youth Mental Health Collaborative at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, the Academic Scholar Award from the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, the Slaight Family Child and Youth Mental Health Innovation Fund and The Catherine and Maxwell Meighen Foundation (both via CAMH Foundation), and the Province of Ontario Neurodevelopmental Disorders (POND) Network from the Ontario Brain Institute.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Ami Tint

  2. Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Ami Tint, Yani Hamdani, Amanda Sawyer, Pushpal Desarkar, Stephanie H. Ameis & Meng-Chuan Lai

  3. Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Ami Tint, Yani Hamdani & Amanda Sawyer

  4. Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Yani Hamdani, Pushpal Desarkar, Stephanie H. Ameis & Meng-Chuan Lai

  5. Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Stephanie H. Ameis & Meng-Chuan Lai

  6. Autism Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Nicole Bardikoff

  7. Autism Research Centre, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Meng-Chuan Lai

  8. Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital and College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan

    Meng-Chuan Lai

Authors
  1. Ami Tint
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  2. Yani Hamdani
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  3. Amanda Sawyer
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  4. Pushpal Desarkar
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  5. Stephanie H. Ameis
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  6. Nicole Bardikoff
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  7. Meng-Chuan Lai
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Correspondence to Meng-Chuan Lai.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Intellectual Disability

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Tint, A., Hamdani, Y., Sawyer, A. et al. Wellness Efforts for Autistic Women. Curr Dev Disord Rep 5, 207–216 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40474-018-0148-z

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