Intersecting effects of sex/gender and autism on structural language: A scoping review.

This review looked at how gender affects language skills in autistic people. They found that autistic girls have better language than autistic boys, but worse language than non-autistic girls. This might be why fewer girls get diagnosed with autism - their language looks okay compared to autistic boys. The research mostly ignored transgender and nonbinary autistic people, which is a big gap that needs fixing.

This scoping review examined how sex/gender intersects with language abilities in autistic individuals. Analyzing 24 articles published between 2000-2021, researchers found that autistic girls demonstrate better language skills than autistic boys but poorer skills compared to non-autistic girls. This pattern may contribute to underdiagnosis of autism in girls, as their abilities appear relatively preserved when compared to autistic boys rather than typically developing girls. The review highlighted significant gaps in research representation, with only one study including transgender or nonbinary autistic individuals.

The findings support developing gender-informed diagnostic and intervention approaches, and emphasize the need for researchers to better understand gender diversity within the autistic community.

Supports need for gender-informed diagnostic criteria and assessment tools. Suggests comparing autistic girls to typically developing girls rather than autistic boys may improve diagnostic accuracy. Highlights urgent need for inclusive research that represents gender diversity in the autistic community and development of culturally responsive interventions.

As a scoping review of existing literature, findings are limited by the quality and scope of included studies. Sample size not reported. Research gap in transgender/nonbinary representation limits generalizability. No mention of study quality assessment or potential publication bias.

Research about autism is mostly about boys and men, even though many autistic people are girls, women, and transgender/nonbinary. We wanted to learn more about how gender interacts with language skills in autistic people, so we reviewed existing research articles on this topic. We also wanted to know how this previous research talked about gender. Included articles had to measure language skills for autistic people of different genders.

They also had to be published between 2000 and 2021. Twenty-four articles met these requirements. We found that autistic girls showed better language skills than autistic boys but worse skills than nonautistic girls. This may be one reason that autistic girls are underdiagnosed compared to autistic boys.

If we compare autistic girls to nonautistic girls instead, we can see more language differences and possible areas to target in interventions. This study supports the need to create diagnostic and support measures for autism that take gender into account. Also, only one article mentioned autistic people who are transgender or nonbinary. Researchers who want to learn more about gender and autism need to understand gender diversity and recognize that many autistic people are transgender or nonbinary.