Every school has at least one female pupil on the autistic spectrum - a frequently undiagnosed condition in girls that leaves them vulnerable to sexual exploitation - an expert has warned.
Barry Carpenter said that undiagnosed girls were also at greater risk of developing mental health problems. He told TES there was “most certainly” a girl with autism in every school in the country. However, many were not identified because “lots of the stuff we use for diagnosis was standardised on men”.
“Every teacher needs to be aware of this,” added Professor Carpenter, chair of the national Autism and Girls Forum.
It used to be thought that boys outnumbered girls on the autistic spectrum by five or even 10 to one. But recent research suggests that there are in fact only two or three times as many boys as girls affected, with many girls missed because their autism manifests itself differently.
Undiagnosed issue
The issue was highlighted in a major TES feature last year, and discussed again at a conference in London last month. Francesca Happé, an expert on autism at King’s College London, told the event that many girls with anxiety, eating disorders and other mental health conditions had undiagnosed autism.
“When they get to a clinician, the clinician diagnoses that problem but doesn’t look any further,” she said.
One recent study involving a small sample found that seven out of 10 young women presenting with eating disorders fulfilled the diagnostic criteria of autism.
Picking up the autism as well as the mental health condition was crucial, Professor Happé said, because it might “change the way the appropriate treatment can be found”.
‘Girls are vulnerable because they camouflage their autism’
Professor Carpenter said teachers should be aware that girls might also be more effective at hiding their autism than boys.
“If a teacher cracks a joke, the girl with autism in the class will actually scan the room very quickly and check that every other girl is laughing and she’ll be the last one to laugh,” the honorary professor at the University of Worcester said. “[She] doesn’t understand the humour - but she’ll laugh.”
But this “camouflaging” often led to problems. “They’re vulnerable because they are mimicking and camouflaging their autism and it’s exhausting, so they’re getting mental health issues,” Professor Carpenter said.
‘Groomed by gangs’
According to the academic, the desire of autistic girls “to be like the others” also means they are at greater risk of sexual exploitation.
“When girls start to say, ‘Oh I’ve got a boyfriend’, they then want a boyfriend, but they get themselves into risky situations,” he said.
Girls with autism could end up being sexually groomed by gangs, he added. They could develop a belief that “the only way to have a relationship with a man is to enter into a relationship sexually”.
But Professor Carpenter said that safeguarding autistic girls could be challenging because a “black-and-white thinker” who was “desperate for friends” might believe that engaging in risky behaviour was better than the apparent alternative - being “excluded” and “isolated”.
He suggested that girls with autism could be supported by giving them a “space to talk” and learn “social strategies” - for example, through a weekly gender-specific lunch group.
The Department for Education needed to commission research to develop the right strategies, the academic said. “There is no educational research happening,” he warned. “We’re doing best-guess stuff in schools…there’s no tried-and-tested methodology.”
