5 ms·

I am part of the research team that collects and analyses this dataset, although I am not an author on this particular analysis. Feel free to ask me any questio

I am part of the research team that collects and analyses this dataset, although I am not an author on this particular analysis. Feel free to ask me any questions.

vegetablepotpie 6y ago
Thank you for coming on. This quote caught my attention: >The fact that more of the girls appear to have decreased in autism severity may be due to an increasing number of girls who have learned how to mask their symptoms. What hypothesis exist to explain this gender disparity?
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  The gender disparity in autism prevalence is one of the big mysteries of autism since genes associated with autism risk are not generally located on the XY sex chromosome. There are a number of hypotheses out there for the disparity of prevalence. One hypothesis is that the disparity is more apparent than real: That girls are better at masking/adapting to their symptoms, and thus more frequently escape diagnosis. The first step is to determine the extent to which this is true. If true, the underlying mechanism would need to be understood...some have suggested this could be related to greater inter-hemispheric connectivity in girls.
  - watwut 6y ago
    I think that question is, why are girls better at masking/adapting symptoms? Regardless of whether autism is more prevalent in girls, what it is about being girl that makes you mask better.
    - bondarchuk 6y ago
      I've always wondered about this one: symptoms of autism are closer to the expected behaviour of girls than that of boys.
      - Jare 6y ago
        I touched on this in a nearby comment, but: I think that works, but only for the somewhat milder symptoms.
    - TeaDrunk 6y ago
      There is significant pressure on girls to behave in a manner that an adult might (quieter, more sociable, smiling, tolerant of situations) and significant pressure not to behave in an outwardly or rowdy manner (stimming, being hyperactive, responding in upset at being overstimulated, responding to sensory displeasure by rejection, etc).
      - watwut 6y ago
        I thought that autistic cant be pressured away from symptoms?
        vulcan01 6y ago
        I think the parent comment is trying to say that the symptoms can be 'pressured away' by pressuring the child into masking their symptoms.
  - Jare 6y ago
    It would seem to me that masking works to a point (towards the "highly functioning" side of the spectrum), and once you get to the ways in which autism blocks ability to perform certain common behaviours and activities (e.g. non-verbal), the gender percentages should get closer again, because there's no masking to hide them or social expectations that they match. Is this the case?
    - nicoburns 6y ago
      I've seen research that suggests that estrogen could mitigate symptoms of autism, which could also explain a gender difference: - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5193073/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5193073/ - https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/estrogen-reverses-autism-like-features-in-mice/ https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/estrogen-reverses-autism-l...
    - SubiculumCode 6y ago
      It should be noted that this research sample, as opposed to many autism samples, includes autism with non-verbal, and severe intellectual disability phenotypes of autism, phenotypes not always captured in neuroimaging research of adults due to compliance issues (We collect neuroimaging data while participants sleep in the scanner).
  - fragmede 6y ago
    My hypothesis is that there's is a simpler, more-cultural answer, which is that girls with autism simply aren't diagnosed at the same rate that boys with autism are.
    - SubiculumCode 6y ago
      That is certainly one of the hypotheses in the mix. Personally, I think it accounts for some, but not all of the disparity.
cmehdy 6y ago
Out of curiosity, what is the basis for the idea that girls have an ability to camouflage or hide their symptoms better than boys? While trying to find information about this, I came across this meta-analytic review of gender differences in emotion expression in children[0], but without being in the field it's hard to make a link between emotion expression and ASD symptomatology. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3597769/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3597769/
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  Camouflage is just one of the potential hypotheses out there, and the one with which I am least familiar. There are ideas about increased social-cognitive abilities in girls, allowing more effective masking/adaption. But it can also be the case that it is not merely camouflaging symptoms, but actually neural adaption and compensation that reduce or even eliminate symptoms. It could be that girls receive more social support than boys, and the one thing we do know about autism during early childhood is that early behavioral interventions can improve quality of life outcomes.
lionheart 6y ago
Were there any correlations in this study between changes in severity of symptoms and therapies such as ABA?
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  This dataset did not include a controlled therapy intervention. Community therapy of a multitude of varieties probably occurred.
gwern 6y ago
I have a question: how do their analyses account for regression to the mean? The headline sex and IQ differences look exactly like regression to the mean to me: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gtvoan/around_30_percent_of_young_children_with_autism/fsfm3pu/ https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gtvoan/around_30_p...
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  Generally, in longitudinal analysis, three data points are the minimum required to fit a line while guarding against reversions to the mean. The lead author is currently assessing data with a third longitudinal timepoint of the ADOS severity measure. That said, the research article tried to guard against this problem by defining the minimum amount of change to be considered a reliable change i.e. a Reliable Change Index statistic (RCI; Jacobson and Truax 1991), which is, in Latex: RCI_{{Z\,SCORE}} = \frac{{({\text{ADOS}}\,{\text{CSS}}{\mkern 1mu} {\text{Time}}{\mkern 1mu} 3 - {\text{ADOS}}\,{\text{CSS}}{\mkern 1mu} {\text{Time}}{\mkern 1mu} 1)}}{{\sqrt {2\left( {SD\sqrt {1 - r_{{xy}} } } \right)^{2} } }} which takes into account test-retest reliability correlations. Roughly speaking, this meant the the change groups ended up changing dX>+2 or dX<-2 on a 0-10 ADOS severity scale (4 is usually the clinical threshold for ASD diagnosis), while the no change group was defined roughly as between -2<dX<+2. Furthermore, in data I did help analyze which is currently included in a journal submission, the change groups defined here exhibited altered longitudinal trajectories of white matter fractional anistropy and diffusivity, suggesting biological relevance one might not expect with a statistical reversion to the mean.
  - gwern 6y ago
    I see. > suggesting biological relevance one might not expect with a statistical reversion to the mean. Just going to note here that regression to the mean is not 'just' statistical. It happens any time two variables are not perfectly correlated. The imperfect correlation could be due just as easily to 'biological relevance' as it could be to some sort of more purely statistical random error like rater error, so pointing out biology is no evidence. (As in the classic example of the flu patient going to the doctor and recovering afterwards; they really were biologically sick and really did biologically recover.)

I am part of the research team that collects and analyses this dataset, although I am not an author on this particular analysis. Feel free to ask me any questions.

vegetablepotpie 6y ago

Thank you for coming on. This quote caught my attention: >The fact that more of the girls appear to have decreased in autism severity may be due to an increasing number of girls who have learned how to mask their symptoms. What hypothesis exist to explain this gender disparity?

SubiculumCode 6y ago
The gender disparity in autism prevalence is one of the big mysteries of autism since genes associated with autism risk are not generally located on the XY sex chromosome. There are a number of hypotheses out there for the disparity of prevalence. One hypothesis is that the disparity is more apparent than real: That girls are better at masking/adapting to their symptoms, and thus more frequently escape diagnosis. The first step is to determine the extent to which this is true. If true, the underlying mechanism would need to be understood...some have suggested this could be related to greater inter-hemispheric connectivity in girls.
- watwut 6y ago
  I think that question is, why are girls better at masking/adapting symptoms? Regardless of whether autism is more prevalent in girls, what it is about being girl that makes you mask better.
  - bondarchuk 6y ago
    I've always wondered about this one: symptoms of autism are closer to the expected behaviour of girls than that of boys.
    - Jare 6y ago
      I touched on this in a nearby comment, but: I think that works, but only for the somewhat milder symptoms.
  - TeaDrunk 6y ago
    There is significant pressure on girls to behave in a manner that an adult might (quieter, more sociable, smiling, tolerant of situations) and significant pressure not to behave in an outwardly or rowdy manner (stimming, being hyperactive, responding in upset at being overstimulated, responding to sensory displeasure by rejection, etc).
    - watwut 6y ago
      I thought that autistic cant be pressured away from symptoms?
      - vulcan01 6y ago
        I think the parent comment is trying to say that the symptoms can be 'pressured away' by pressuring the child into masking their symptoms.
- Jare 6y ago
  It would seem to me that masking works to a point (towards the "highly functioning" side of the spectrum), and once you get to the ways in which autism blocks ability to perform certain common behaviours and activities (e.g. non-verbal), the gender percentages should get closer again, because there's no masking to hide them or social expectations that they match. Is this the case?
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    I've seen research that suggests that estrogen could mitigate symptoms of autism, which could also explain a gender difference: - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5193073/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5193073/ - https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/estrogen-reverses-autism-like-features-in-mice/ https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/estrogen-reverses-autism-l...
  - SubiculumCode 6y ago
    It should be noted that this research sample, as opposed to many autism samples, includes autism with non-verbal, and severe intellectual disability phenotypes of autism, phenotypes not always captured in neuroimaging research of adults due to compliance issues (We collect neuroimaging data while participants sleep in the scanner).
- fragmede 6y ago
  My hypothesis is that there's is a simpler, more-cultural answer, which is that girls with autism simply aren't diagnosed at the same rate that boys with autism are.
  - SubiculumCode 6y ago
    That is certainly one of the hypotheses in the mix. Personally, I think it accounts for some, but not all of the disparity.

cmehdy 6y ago

Out of curiosity, what is the basis for the idea that girls have an ability to camouflage or hide their symptoms better than boys? While trying to find information about this, I came across this meta-analytic review of gender differences in emotion expression in children[0], but without being in the field it's hard to make a link between emotion expression and ASD symptomatology. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3597769/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3597769/

SubiculumCode 6y ago
Camouflage is just one of the potential hypotheses out there, and the one with which I am least familiar. There are ideas about increased social-cognitive abilities in girls, allowing more effective masking/adaption. But it can also be the case that it is not merely camouflaging symptoms, but actually neural adaption and compensation that reduce or even eliminate symptoms. It could be that girls receive more social support than boys, and the one thing we do know about autism during early childhood is that early behavioral interventions can improve quality of life outcomes.

lionheart 6y ago

Were there any correlations in this study between changes in severity of symptoms and therapies such as ABA?

SubiculumCode 6y ago
This dataset did not include a controlled therapy intervention. Community therapy of a multitude of varieties probably occurred.

gwern 6y ago

I have a question: how do their analyses account for regression to the mean? The headline sex and IQ differences look exactly like regression to the mean to me: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gtvoan/around_30_percent_of_young_children_with_autism/fsfm3pu/ https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gtvoan/around_30_p...

SubiculumCode 6y ago
Generally, in longitudinal analysis, three data points are the minimum required to fit a line while guarding against reversions to the mean. The lead author is currently assessing data with a third longitudinal timepoint of the ADOS severity measure. That said, the research article tried to guard against this problem by defining the minimum amount of change to be considered a reliable change i.e. a Reliable Change Index statistic (RCI; Jacobson and Truax 1991), which is, in Latex: RCI_{{Z\,SCORE}} = \frac{{({\text{ADOS}}\,{\text{CSS}}{\mkern 1mu} {\text{Time}}{\mkern 1mu} 3 - {\text{ADOS}}\,{\text{CSS}}{\mkern 1mu} {\text{Time}}{\mkern 1mu} 1)}}{{\sqrt {2\left( {SD\sqrt {1 - r_{{xy}} } } \right)^{2} } }} which takes into account test-retest reliability correlations. Roughly speaking, this meant the the change groups ended up changing dX>+2 or dX<-2 on a 0-10 ADOS severity scale (4 is usually the clinical threshold for ASD diagnosis), while the no change group was defined roughly as between -2<dX<+2. Furthermore, in data I did help analyze which is currently included in a journal submission, the change groups defined here exhibited altered longitudinal trajectories of white matter fractional anistropy and diffusivity, suggesting biological relevance one might not expect with a statistical reversion to the mean.
- gwern 6y ago
  I see. > suggesting biological relevance one might not expect with a statistical reversion to the mean. Just going to note here that regression to the mean is not 'just' statistical. It happens any time two variables are not perfectly correlated. The imperfect correlation could be due just as easily to 'biological relevance' as it could be to some sort of more purely statistical random error like rater error, so pointing out biology is no evidence. (As in the classic example of the flu patient going to the doctor and recovering afterwards; they really were biologically sick and really did biologically recover.)