Autistic girls much less likely to be diagnosed, study says

By age 20 diagnosis rates for men and women almost equal, research finds, challenging assumptions of gender discrepancy

Females may be just as likely to be autistic as males but boys are up to four times more likely to be diagnosed in childhood, according to a large-scale study.

Research led by the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden scrutinised the diagnosis rates of autism for people born in Sweden between 1985 and 2020. Of the 2.7 million people tracked, 2.8% were diagnosed with autism between the ages of two and 37.