experts are beginning to call into question the historical view that the autistic spectrum is prevalent more in men than in women (one woman for every 4 men) because they estimate that the prevalence in women who have never had intellectual disability or developmental disturbances, turned out to be “invisible” in many of them, going unnoticed when they were girls, or ascribing the reasons to misdiagnoses.
The Faculty of Health Sciences of the UJI welcomed this Wednesday the IJornada about Women and TEA, visibilizando the autistic spectrum, invisible, organized by Casatea, a new association, precisely created to give “visibility” to the “women’s TEA”. Alicia Fabregat Agost is a psychologist specialist ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) and is presiding over this entity, driven along to Lidón Fresquet Ucedo, a consultant to adolescents and adults with Asperger’s.
why they feel the need to, at a given time, boost Casatea?Lidón Fresquet and I met three years ago, congeniamos and we discovered that together we could do many things to help the collective of the women TEA. The association Casatea (Circle of Friends of Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorders) complements other partnerships that already exist, therefore our goals and activities mark the difference of gender. Each in our own way, we took many, many years fighting to defend the rights of people with ASD, and little by little, we’ve been giving shape to a project that began as a web page and today it has consolidated in a partnership small and modest, but with set highly ambitious objectives related to social justice for women and in general, to the most vulnerable groups. The day were addressed to professionals of the health, education, students, and family members of people with ASD, taught by psychologists of wide experience, policies, and midwives; that concluded with a final round table, what was the goal?It was the first activity that we were running from Casatea. We wanted to present ourselves in the society and better with facts than with words. With the days we wanted to join the movement in favor of the visibility of Women TEA, which is currently growing at the international level, and that in Spain, this year has seen its fruits in the other calls were similar and in the publication of a specific guide on the subject, on the part of Aetapi (Spanish Association of Professionals in Autism). Why focus on women?As in any area in the us to look, the woman suffers inequalities that end up turning into a violation of their rights. Currently, they are appearing studies that reveal that the profile female may be qualitatively differently to the male. It is essential to put the focus of attention in this matter, if we want the gender differences to be addressed from the equality and not discrimination. There is talk about it, to publicize it, visibilizarlo, to make aware to the whole of society of what is going on. What difficulties are presented to the ignorance of the society?Obviously they suffer double invisibility that men, as the profile is quite different. Some women seem to have greater propensity to socialize and can develop strategies of ‘accommodation ‘ social’, so that camouflage their difficulties in social connection, which makes them go unnoticed, or does that confuse the diagnosis. All of this has an effect on the trivialization of their problems and the perpetuation of their discomfort. Why is it important to show that autism spectrum ‘invisible’?Because when you resort to clinical services, often receive diagnoses biased or wrong. As well, many people are diagnosed with one or more pathologies such as social anxiety disorder, depression, obsessive, etc, and it is obvious that the possibility of submitting an autistic spectrum base, that would explain all the symptoms. In consequence, the absence of an accurate diagnosis, limited therapeutic options tailored to the particularities of each person, which will affect their quality of life. From the clinic we look at how an accurate diagnosis is therapeutic in itself, as both the person who receives it as the people around you can understand, accept, and adjust the environment to their needs and specific peculiarities. At what stage is detected, what are the indicators that move?In principle, if you are well-versed in the diagnostic criteria and the differences of gender, is detected at the same age than men. The problem is that the difficulties of the girls are very subtle, and if the variability among men is huge, among the women, is, if anything, still more marked. In addition, their ability to camouflage conduct that could raise the visibility of the disorder increases this difficulty, and makes, not to see the problems in all areas, it is considered that these do not exist, or due to other causes. How do I normalize the lives of people with ASD and their families?Through the understanding of the disorder and acceptance of their diversity. Not denying them the supports to which they are entitled. Have problems of communication, social interaction, patterns of behavior with very narrow interests, difficulty changes very marked, at the level of communication difficulties with non-verbal communication; pragmatics of the language, do not understand double meaning, metaphor, jokes, irony, do not know the rules of social interaction, are awkward in their social relationships, they want to have friends but they don’t know. However, women, for example, have a capacity to act in a way that is very chameleon-like, have a greater ability to mimic social behaviors and use them in a way that obscures and seems to know how to do this, but simply mimic and thereby cover the enormous difficulties that they have. Suffer much more, because it seems as if…, but in reality, not. And of course, go for women with anxiety, depression, extreme shyness, or behavioral problems brutal, because they are extreme, or very apocadas or very rampaging and confused with other disorders or that they are a blatant. Of course, there are that know him very well: to see a person with an ASD is not to say that you’ve seen them all. And, unfortunately, in the educational arena, this happens fairly often. How do I work from the areas of health, education, etc?For at this time, the main problem is that you know about the disorder on the part of the professionals of the health care and education. There are still many myths about autism, many prejudices and a lot of misinformation. At present, the lack of knowledge on the part of practitioners is huge. Why are not diagnosing some people on the autism spectrum?It seems to be that the diagnostic criteria and protocols of evaluation are not shifting through all the variability in the presentation of the autistic spectrum. This forces us to professionals to deepen the understanding of the autism spectrum taking into account not only the research, but also the information in the first person as the source of great qualitative value.
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