University of Minnesota researchers have found that girls show fewer issues making eye contact than boys do, which is considered a key early marker of autism. Dr. Casey Burrows, who worked on the study, joined CBS News to discuss the findings.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have identified notable differences in how autism presents in girls compared to boys. The study found that girls tend to exhibit milder symptoms and have fewer issues with eye contact, a key early marker for autism. These distinctions may help explain why girls are less likely to receive an autism diagnosis.

Dr. Casey Burrows, an associate professor involved in the study, noted that current screening tools may not adequately capture the unique ways autism manifests in girls. She emphasized the need for further research and updates to diagnostic measures to ensure more accurate identification and tailored support for all children on the autism spectrum.

Girls present autism differently than boys, study finds

Well, there's a new study highlighting the differences in diagnosing autism between girls and boys. Researchers at the University of Minnesota found that girls showed fewer issues making eye contact than boys did, which is considered a key early marker of autism. Now, that may help explain why girls are far less likely to receive a diagnosis. Dr. Casey Burrows worked on this study and joins us now. She's an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Department of Pediatrics. Thanks for joining us. So what are the other differences in how boys and girls present autism that you care to share? Yeah, so our research showed that girls show milder differences and milder symptoms overall, and they also had fewer difficulties with eye contact. There were also some features that were less predictive of an autism, overall kind of autism traits in girls compared to boys. And when we mentioned at the top of this that girls are less likely to receive a diagnosis, do you think that there are changes that should be made to the screening measures and what would those changes be based off of the information that you've been studying? Yeah, so our screening measures were developed about 20 years ago and have been updated since then, but I think we've learned a lot more about autism in the intervening time. So I think a lot of research is needed into different ways to identify symptoms in a way that can help us identify an individual profile of symptoms and strengths and weaknesses and help provide tailored recommendations to get the person the right kinds of supports that they need at the right time. What's an example of that? When you talk about tailoring things and maybe looking at a specific trait and going, you know what, maybe that could be considered some form of autism because it is a spectrum disorder. Yeah, so I'm thinking of a specific patient I had who when I first met her, she seemed really social. She was around the same age our study is focusing on, two years old, and she smiled at me and waved and I initially thought, well, you know, she's got some nice eye contact, but then when we moved into a different room, she did the same thing again. She smiled and she waved and it seemed like that was her way to greet people. So it wasn't about, you know, in a lot of autism intervention research, we focus on teaching skills and for her, she had a lot of nice skills. We just had to focus on generalizing them. How do we help her to adapt her skills and use different skills that she had in different situations? I see, so what questions did this study perhaps not answer that you still have? Yeah, that's a great question. So one of the biggest questions that our study was looking at is thinking about sex differences in terms of how autism is evaluated and what we weren't able to tease apart is is that because of something about the diagnostic measure or is it something truly about how girls present differently from boys? And so we're hoping to take the next steps in this research to look at similar analyses in different kinds of measures to see if we're seeing a consistent story about the traits or is it something more about how the clinicians are completing this measure and how girls are being rated on that instrument. All right, Dr. Casey Burrows, thank you so much.

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