Category: Togetherness

Nature has put a couple of short video interviews online to accompany two papers published in this week’s edition that explain how certain aspects Indo-European languages have evolved over time.

The first study is by the inimitable Erez Lieberman and looks at why the used of ‘ed’ to make past tense verbs in the English language (e.g. ‘juggled’) has become so widespread despite historical competition with other irregular versions, only a few of which now exist.

The researchers found that the more frequently the a verb is used in the language, the less quickly it becomes regularised in the language.

A similar technique was used in a study by Mark Pagel and colleagues, who found that in Indo-European languages, the more frequently a word is used the less likely it is to be replaced.

The video interviews are with two members of the Pagel lab, who describe their findings and their significance.

Link to Nature video interviews on the evolution of language.
Link to Nature editorial with links to studies.
Link to write-up from Nature News.

A study shortly to be published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour found that lap dancers in their most fertile phase of the menstrual cycle earned much more than dancers in the least fertile phase. In contrast, dancers who took the contraceptive pill, which ‘flattens’ the hormone cycle, earned much the same throughout the month.

This adds to the increasing evidence that women’s sexual behaviour changes during their monthly cycle, and that the external signs of this change are picked up by males.

We’ve covered a couple of other studies that have reported that women dress more attractively and show a greater neural response to rewards at their most fertile time.

Other studies have found that the most fertile time is associated with increased facial attractiveness, decreased waist-to-hip ratio, higher levels verbal creativity, a heightened interest in other partners (and a greater ‘protective’ interest from their primary partner) – to name but a few of the effects.

The researchers of the latest study, led by psychologist Prof Geoff Miller, asked 18 dancers to record their menstrual periods, work shifts, and tip earnings for 60 days via a web site.

Although 18 participants is relatively few for a psychology study, they recorded a large amount of data over time – 296 work shifts in total, representing about 5300 lap dances.

Dancers who were not on the contraceptive pill and at their most fertile time earned an average of $70 dollars an hour, twice the $35 average of women at their least fertile phase.

Dancers who took the contraceptive pill, which ‘flattens’ the hormone cycle, didn’t show a peak in earnings when the peak in fertility would normally occur.

The researchers suggest that this is evidence of ‘estrus’ – an external display of peak fertility – seen in almost all other animals but supposedly missing in humans. One theory goes that women have ‘concealed ovulation’ as estrus has been lost during evolution.

But the fact that tip earnings peak during estrus perhaps suggests that men can detect female fertility more accurately than the ‘concealed ovulation’ idea suggests.

They also argue that studying lap dancing may also be a particularly powerful way of understanding change in female sexual attractiveness as the interaction with the men is ‘multisensory’ and there is a clear measure of appreciation – the tips from patrons:

Because academics may be unfamiliar with the gentlemen’s
club subculture, some background may be helpful… Club patrons will often “sample” several different dancers with one lap dance each before picking one for a more expensive multisong bout of dancing. Thus, patrons can assess the relative attractiveness of different women through intimate verbal, visual, tactile, and olfactory interaction, and those attractiveness judgments can directly influence women’s tip earnings, through the number of 3-min dances that patrons request from each dancer.

Link to abstract of scientific study (thanks Matthew!).
Link to write-up from Psychology Today.

The New York Times discusses recent findings suggesting that not expressing feelings during marital arguments is bad for women’s health, but not for men’s.

The article draws on the results of a study that followed over 3,500 people and looked at both the quality of their marriage and whether they developed heart disease.

Interestingly, the overall level of marital satisfaction and total number of disagreements were not related to heart problems.

However, women who “self-silenced” during conflict with their spouse, compared with women who did not, had four times the risk of dying. This was not the case with men.

The tendency to bottle up feelings during a fight is known as self-silencing. For men, it may simply be a calculated but harmless decision to keep the peace. But when women stay quiet, it takes a surprising physical toll.

“When you’re suppressing communication and feelings during conflict with your husband, it’s doing something very negative to your physiology, and in the long term it will affect your health,” said Elaine Eaker, an epidemiologist in Gaithersburg, Md., who was the study’s lead author. “This doesn’t mean women should start throwing plates at their husbands, but there needs to be a safe environment where both spouses can equally communicate.”

Other studies led by Dana Crowley Jack, a professor of interdisciplinary studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., have linked the self-silencing trait to numerous psychological and physical health risks, including depression, eating disorders and heart disease.

Keeping quiet during a fight with a spouse is something “we all have to do sometimes,” Dr. Jack said. “But we worry about the people who do it in a more extreme fashion.”

Nevertheless, men are not without their seemingly gender specific health risks. The study found that men with wives who were upset by work were almost three times more likely to develop heart disease.

The study is another example of how mental and physical health are completely intertwined.

Link to NYT article ‘Marital Spats, Taken to Heart’.
Link to abstract of scientific study.

The New Atlantis magazine has an intriguing article that considers the social effects of sites like MySpace and Facebook and discusses how we are increasingly using these tools to carefully manage our public image – something that was previously only a concern for celebrities and media figures.

The article describes by describing the social networking sites and how they work and discusses a little of their history, but shortly after, it tackles the psychology of how we use them to manage our online identities.

The world of online social networking is practically homogenous in one other sense, however diverse it might at first appear: its users are committed to self-exposure. The creation and conspicuous consumption of intimate details and images of one‚Äôs own and others‚Äô lives is the main activity in the online social networking world. There is no room for reticence; there is only revelation. Quickly peruse a profile and you know more about a potential acquaintance in a moment than you might have learned about a flesh-and-blood friend in a month. As one college student recently described to the New York Times Magazine: “You might run into someone at a party, and then you Facebook them: what are their interests? Are they crazy-religious, is their favorite quote from the Bible? Everyone takes great pains over presenting themselves. It’s like an embodiment of your personality.”

The article also covers some key studies in social network analysis, the science of understanding how relationships between people facilitate large scale social interaction.

And it also discusses some recent ideas on how these tools might be changing the nature of our relationships as a consequence of simply becoming part of the equation.

Link to article ‘Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism’.

A study just published in the medical journal Psychosomatics reports four case studies of people who developed PTSD after experiencing a traumatic event that never occurred – while their emotional reaction was real, the events were hallucinated.

Post-traumatic stress disorder can occur when someone has experienced a traumatic event over which they had no control. PTSD is diagnosed when memories of the event intrude into everyday life, the person feels the need to avoid anything which could remind them of the situation, and they feel excessively anxious and on edge.

The patients described in the article had all been admitted to intensive care for serious medical conditions, but this was not the direct cause of their trauma.

While in intensive care the patients became delirious, a state where consciousness is clouded, thinking is impaired, and delusions and hallucinations are common.

In these cases, the delusions and hallucinations led the patients to believe they were about to die horrible deaths, were being threatened or were experiencing horrific events.

Later, when they recovered from their primary condition, they had all the symptoms of PTSD – but specifically for the incident that had only occurred in their disturbed thinking.

Here’s one of the case studies:

“Mr. A” was a 56-year-old white man who developed end-stage liver disease from a combination of alcohol and viral hepatitis. Aside from remitted alcohol dependence, he had no other psychiatric history. After liver transplantation, he experienced a difficult medical course, with sepsis, renal failure, biliary reconstruction, respiratory failure, and immunosuppressive medication neurotoxicity from tacrolimus. Several electroencephalograms showed diffuse generalized slowing of the background rhythms and documented seizures. He had persistent delirium for several months postoperatively.

While having delirium, he was extremely agitated, requiring restraints to prevent him from hurting himself and/or dislodging lines and catheters. He appeared awake, but was frequently incoherent and disorganized. However, he was able to articulate paranoid delusions that the staff were trying to kill him and his son. He was also observed to be responding to auditory and visual hallucinations.

Four months after the transplant, when he was discharged from the hospital, his delirium had resolved. He was no longer confused or disoriented, was not actively hallucinating or delusional, and his mood was good, with only occasional, transient symptoms of anxiety.

Several months later, in the transplant clinic, he reported reexperiencing events he had hallucinated while having delirium in the intensive care unit (ICU), and, thus, he met DSM‚ÄìIV criteria for PTSD. He recalled detailed paranoid delusions that the hospital staff had chained his son to his bed and were beating him to death. He recalled struggling against the restraints, hoping to free himself to save his son. He described hearing his son’s screams for help and sounds as if his son was being pummelled.

He reported recurrent nightmares of these events and even daytime flashbacks of these experiences, typically when spending time alone. He attempted to avoid thinking about these events and the hospitalization, but described difficulty doing so because the thoughts were intrusive and difficult to dismiss. Not only did he avoid discussing the events, but he also had difficulty returning to the hospital because it caused him to recall these images. He was observed to be restless and hypervigilant in the transplant clinic.

Both the medical illness and the psychoactive painkillers can contribute to the disturbed thinking that lead to delirium. This in turn can significantly affect how people remember their recovery.

In fact, one study found that some patients had no factual recall of intensive care at all, their only memory of the time was of their delusions. This group were particularly likely to be traumatised.

People are sometimes embarrassed to talk about these experiences, but they are surprisingly common. Studies have estimated that between between 12.5% and 38% of ICU patients experience delusions and hallucinations.

Link to study abstract.

Oliver Sacks has written an engaging piece for the latest edition of the The New Yorker on how musical ability can survive even the most severe amnesia, with particular reference to the famous case of Clive Wearing.

Wearing was a renowned classical musicologist and conductor, involved in recreating some of the most challenging Renaissance works. You can still find him in the sleeve notes of some of his professional recordings, usually described as having retired due to ‘ill health’.

In his case, ill health meant being struck by herpes simplex encephalitis, a viral infection that is known to attack the key memory areas in the brain, leaving him with a dense amnesia.

Even today, he is severely memory-impaired and remains unable to maintain anything in his conscious memory for more than a few seconds.

But in an almost Homeric twist of fate, as if he had bargained with the Gods themselves, he retained the memory that he loved his wife, and his ability to play music.

Clive has been the subject of two documentaries (clips of which are available online) and a recent book by his wife, entitled Forever Today (ISBN 0385606265).

He’s also been the subject of various scientific studies, summarised in a chapter of the book Broken Memories: Case Studies in Memory Impairment (ISBN 0631187235).

This chapter is co-written by Clive’s wife and Prof Barbara Wilson, a respected British neuropsychologist who specialises in memory.

The chapter contains a wealth of information about the neuropsychology of his memory, but also contains this interesting snippet:

For many years, Clive has experienced auditory hallucinations. He hears what he thinks is a tape of himself playing in the distance. He refers to this in his diaries as a ‘master tape’ (a term used in broadcasting for the original audiotape which should be protected from casual use and should certainly not leave the studio).

If asked to sing what he can hear – a sound only ever heard in the distance – he picks the tune up in the middle and is puzzled that no-one else can hear it. Half an hour later when asked to sing what he can hear it is usually the same tune but sometimes sung in a different style as if it were replaying in variations.

The New Yorker article is written with Sacks’ trademark sensitivity and wonder, and is a engrossing exploration of music and memory.

It comes shortly before the release of his new book Musicophilia, of which there is a short audio excerpt on the bottom of the book’s webpage.

Link to New Yorker article ‘Music and amnesia’.

This post tells you to how to help someone who is experiencing psychosis, based on first aid guidelines that have just been published in the medical journal Schizophrenia Bulletin

Psychosis is a mental state where someone might experience hallucinations, unusual beliefs, paranoia, mixed emotions, muddled thoughts, hyper-awareness or show unusual or puzzling behaviour.

The guidelines have been drawn from an international committee of professionals, patients and carers. The detailed points are in table 1 of the paper which is available online as a pdf file.

If you want additional mental health first aid information, there’s more on a dedicated website.

Recognising and acknowledging psychosis

Psychosis is the mental state where someone might experience hallucinations, unusual beliefs, paranoia, mixed emotions, muddled thoughts, hyper-awareness or show unusual or puzzling behaviour. If someone seems distressed or impaired by their experiences, even if they’re quite subtle at first, it’s best not to ignore them and hope they’ll go away. It’s good to give the person the opportunity to discuss the situation.

Approaching someone who might be experiencing psychosis

People experiencing the early stages of psychosis may be worried, and may be concerned about discussing their experiences because of what others might think. Also, the experiences might be frightening in themselves.

The key is to be caring, gentle and non-judgemental. Find somewhere where they can talk safely and that’s free of distractions. Say why you’re worried about them, but avoid talk of mental illness or diagnoses – you could be wrong and it might just make them more frightened. Don’t force a conversation if it’s not wanted and don’t touch them without permission.

Ask the person what will help them feel safe and in control, and allow them to talk about their experiences at their own pace, even if they seem quite unusual to you. Let them know that help is available, and if they don’t want to talk, they’re welcome to talk at a later time.

Giving support

It’s important to respect the person’s beliefs, even if you don’t agree. Someone who is experiencing psychosis might find it hard to distinguish what’s real from what’s not, so telling people that they’re wrong rarely helps. However, it’s always possible to empathise with whatever emotions are stirred up by the experience and this can be very comforting.

Avoid criticising or blaming the person. They may be talking or behaving differently because of their experiences. Although the person might be having some odd experiences and difficulty focusing, their intelligence is unlikely to be affected, so you can talk to them as any other adult. However, sarcasm might be misunderstood by someone who is very suspicious, so should be avoided. Be honest, and don’t make promises you can’t keep.

Dealing with delusions and hallucinations

Delusions (false beliefs) and hallucinations (false experiences) will probably seem real to the person. Avoid denying, dismissing, laughing at, or arguing about their perceived reality. Try not to be alarmed, horrified or embarrassed about any unusual ideas or paranoia.

Dealing with communication difficulties

People with psychosis are often unable to think clearly. Speaking at your normal pace is fine and usually you will be understood perfectly well, but you may need to give the person extra time to absorb and respond to what you say, and you may need to repeat anything they haven’t been able to focus on. The person may seem to show little emotional reaction – but be aware that they may well be feeling strong emotions inside.

Discussing whether to seek professional help

Ask the person if they’ve felt this way before and, if so, what helped then. Find out what sort of assistance the person thinks will help them this time. If the person has supportive family or friends, encourage the person to contact them. The person might need practical or emotional support when using mental health services, and if the person lacks confidence in the medical advice they’ve received, encourage them to get a second opinion.

What to do if the person doesn’t want help

Some people with psychosis don’t realise there’s anything wrong, even when they’re quite distressed or impaired, and may actively resist encouragement to get help. However, many people understand what’s happening and have a right to refuse help. Threatening the person with hospitalisation or mental health law is likely to make matters worse.

If you’re worried about someone you should encourage them to talk to people they trust or get a medical check-up. You may need to be patient, and remain friendly and open to the possibility that the person will seek help in the future as some people will need some time to feel comfortable with the idea.

What to do in a crisis when the person is very unwell

Try to remain as calm as possible, talking in a normal tone of voice and answer any questions the person might have. Your aim is to make the person feel more comfortable and calm the situation.

Try and evaluate whether the person is at risk of being harmed, harming themselves, or is suicidal. If you think this is the case, call for medical assistance immediately. If the situation seems risky, check how to leave and keep yourself safe.

If you need to call medical assistance, make sure they know the seriousness of the situation by describing specific observations about the person. If new people arrive, explain who they are, that they they’re here to help, and how they’re going to assist.

Find out if there’s anyone the person can contact who they trust and might be able to help. If you can help with any requests that aren’t unsafe or unreasonable, it might help the person feel in control.

What to do if the person becomes aggressive

It is very rare that people with even severe psychosis become aggressive. They are much more likely to be a risk to themselves.

However, people who are extremely suspicious, feel persecuted or are worried about their own safety may be jumpy or feel ‘on edge’. The best response is to make the person feel safe and calm. A good way is to lead the way by acting in a calm, reassuring, non-challenging manner. Try to avoid doing anything that might look ‘shifty’ or suspicious or avoid restricting the person’s movement.

Take any threats or warnings seriously. If you are frightened or worried about your own safety leave and call for help. If you call the police, describe any symptoms and immediate concerns and tell them if the person is armed. If possible, explain that you’ve called help to get medical treatment and because you’re worried about their aggressive behaviour.

BBC Radio 4 is running a special season on sexuality that will cover everything from the history cultural views on sex to the medical aspects of sexual dysfunction.

The season spans a number of the BBC’s regular programmes over the next two weeks and has a remarkably wide remit.

Programmes tackle social issues, behaviour and medical aspects of sex – for example, looking at the history of how attitudes to homosexuality have altered, how sexuality has been depicted in art and what can be considered ‘normal’, among many others.

By the looks of it, all the programmes should be available online after they’ve been broadcast.

It looks like a really well put-together season and should make for some interesting listening.

Link to BBC Radio 4 ‘The Sex Lives of Us’ page (via Dr Petra).

The BPS Research Digest reports that children with autism are seemingly ‘immune’ to contagious yawning – perhaps as a result of their reduced social awareness.

Yawning is mysterious: no-one really knows why we do it, but we do know it’s reliably ‘contagious’.

Seeing someone yawn, or indeed, just thinking about someone else yawning, makes us more likely to do the same. For example, this article may well be enough to trigger a yawn in some people.

One of the three key aspects of autism is a difficulty with social interaction (the other two being difficulties with certain types of abstract thinking and a restricted or repetitive range of interests or behaviours).

So a group of researchers, led by psychologist Dr. Atsushi Senju, wondered whether children with autism might be less susceptible to yawn contagion.

They came up with the ‘I wish I’d thought of that’ idea of showing videos of people yawning to groups of typically developing children, and children with a diagnosis of autism.

The study [pdf] showed that children with autism were far less likely to yawn in response to watching others do the same.

Often, autistic social difficulties are put down to a problem with ‘theory of mind‘ the ability to understand other people’s beliefs, intentions and desires, but it’s not clear that contagious yawning relies on this.

The researchers don’t have any easy answers for why yawn contagion is reduced in autism, but suggest, without committing, that known differences in viewing faces, possible differences in mirror neurons or problems with imitating others might be linked.

The BPSRD has a talent for picking up on previously obscure but striking studies, and this is another great example.

Link to BPSRD on autism and contagious yawning ‘immunity’.
pdf of full-text of scientific paper.

There was a interesting segment on NPR Radio’s Talk of the Nation the other week on the psychology of the stock market that discussed what the science of social behaviour can tell us about the causes of booms and busts.

The guest on the show was Michael Mauboussin, professor of finance and author of a recent book on the psychology of the markets.

There’s a lot of talk about the wisdom, and indeed, folly, of crowds, particularly in light of the recent economic turmoil, but perhaps the show lacks a mention of Charles McKay’s 1841 book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

McKay notes how the herd mentality can lead to financial crises because people get excited about obviously foolish investments, simply because of widespread social hype.

It’s a classic in the literature that was not equalled until sociologist Robert Bartholomew examined the topic in more detail in a number of books, of which the wonderfully named Little Green Men, Meowing Nuns and Head-Hunting Panics is undoubtedly my favourite.

Link to NPR on ‘The Psychology of Stocks’.
Link to Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds info.

I’ve just discovered another episode of the excellent WNYC RadioLab – this one on the psychology and neuroscience of morality. It tackles everything from the development of moral reasoning as a child, to the neuroscience of ethical decision-making, to the psychology of prisons and solitary confinement.

If you’ve never heard RadioLab before, have a listen, not least because of the beautiful production. It often contains some wonderfully illustrative moments – something akin to the radio equivalent of the ‘hip hop montage’ film editing technique.

One segment looks at how researchers are attempting to tackle moral reasoning in the lab, something which is becoming an increasingly important research area – as demonstrated by the popularity of Marc Hauser’s book Moral Minds.

This research, as well as observational studies on non-human primates, has suggested that some moral behaviour may inherited.

The idea that pro-social behaviour may be the result of evolution has led to the cover story in this week’s New Scientist to pose the related question “If morality is hard-wired in the brain, what’s the point of religion?’

Sadly, the article isn’t open access (pro-social behaviour not being fully evolved in the NewSci offices) but it’s an interesting review of some recent studies on the psychology of religion, with some speculative commentary on the possible evolutionary roles of spiritual faith:

Psychologists Azim Shariff and Ara Norenzayan from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, found that by presenting people first with a word game unscrambling either religious or non-religious phrases, even atheists could be primed to be more generous to an anonymous partner by exposure to the religious words [pdf]…

So why do religious concepts provoke moral behaviour even in non-believers? It’s because both religion and morality are evolutionary adaptations, says Jesse Bering, who heads the Institute of Cognition and Culture at Queen’s University, Belfast, UK. Morality does not stem from religion, as is often argued, he suggests: they evolved separately, albeit in response to the same forces in our social environment. Once our ancestors acquired language and theory of mind – the ability to understand what others are thinking – news of any individual’s reputation could spread far beyond their immediate group. Anyone with tendencies to behave pro-socially would then have been at an advantage, Bering says: “What we’re concerned about in terms of our moral behaviour is what other people think about us.” So morality became adaptive.

Link to RadioLab on the science of morality.

The Scientific American’s Mind Matters has a special on whether key bonding hormone oxytocin boosts our ability to understand other people’s beliefs, intentions and desires.

Oxytocin seems to play a role in bonding between mother and child, and between romantic couples.

The article discusses recent research that found that using an oxytocin nasal spray boosted participant’s performance on a task that measured ‘theory of mind‘ – the ability to infer other people’s beliefs from their actions.

Like ‘mirror neurons‘, oxytocin is something which is currently overhyped but still genuinely interesting.

The article is by psychologist Prof Jennifer Bartz and psychiatrist Prof Eric Hollander and discusses this new study, and some of the theories that attempt to explain how oxytocin has its effect:

Both our lab and the Domes lab have found that oxytocin facilitates the processing of social information gathered through at least two different sensory modalities — that is, through both hearing and vision. This raises questions about just how oxytocin actually facilitates social cognition and theory of mind.

Previous research indicates that oxytocin plays a role in regulating stress and fear reactivity. Thus oxytocin may facilitate theory of mind by reducing the social anxiety that is inherent in many social encounters — and which is felt keenly by many individuals with autism.

Another possibility is that oxytocin may increase motivation to attend to social cues by reinforcing social information processing.

Link to article ‘The hormone that helps you read minds’.
Link to abstract of scientific study.

The BPS Research Digest has an intriguing post on a study that found that a mother’s use of verbs like ‘think’, ‘know’ and ‘remember’ when reading picture books to their children predicted the child’s later ability to understand other people’s mental states.

The researchers recorded mothers reading to their 3-6 year-old children, and tested each child’s ‘theory of mind‘ – the ability to infer other people’s beliefs, intentions and mental states.

A year later, the same procedure was repeated with the same mothers and children.

The researchers discovered that the more mothers used cognitive terms when telling the story (e.g. Mother says: “…this boy sees so many people and thinks, ‘I’ll pretend I don’t know what’s going on and I’ll push to the front of the queue'”) the better the child’s later ‘theory of mind’ abilities.

There’s more on the study over at the BPSRD. Importantly, it raises some compelling questions about how early interaction could affect the development of a child’s mental abilities.

Link to BPSRD post.

Nothing is easier than believing we understand experiences we’ve never had.

A quote from Gwen Bristow found written on a wall in Covent Garden.

An interesting excerpt from a recent scientific paper entitled “Toward an understanding of the cerebral substrates of woman’s orgasm”, published in the August edition of Neuropsychologia:

Since the pioneering research of Kinsey and then of Masters and Johnson, there has been considerable discussion about the differences between female and male orgasm. While orgasms are physiologically the same in males and females, it has often been assumed that there are two distinct and easily distinguishable kinds of subjective experiences (Vance & Wagner, 1976).

This assumption is mostly based on the basic physical disparities between male and female orgasm concerning the orgasm duration. For example, it is agreed that a man’s orgasm is often more sudden and explosive in nature while a woman’s orgasm is more prolonged and less violent (Meston et al., 2004; Vance & Wagner, 1976).

However, a study investigating the basic differences between a man’s and a woman’s orgasm experience by submitting 48 written descriptions of orgasm (24 men and 24 women) to 70 judges, demonstrated that subjective experience of orgasm do not differ by gender (Vance & Wagner, 1976).

In this study, the judges (obstetrician-gynecologists, psychologists, and medical students) had to sex-identify the descriptions and to discover whether sex differences could be detected. The judges could not correctly identify the sex of the person describing an orgasm. Furthermore, male judges did no better than female judges and vice versa.

This suggests that men and women share common mental [cognitive] experiences during orgasm. Whether this is the case at the neurological level is a matter for current neuroimaging data.

An interesting paper which I shall try and write about more when I get the chance.

Link to abstract of scientific paper.

The New York Times has an in-depth article on autism in girls, a topic largely neglected in the research literature owing to the fact that males are much more likely to be diagnosed with the condition.

It’s only recently that researchers have started to look in earnest into differences between boys and girls with autism.

Generally, the studies find that there are no major differences in the core aspects of autism between the sexes. But as a diagnosis of autism relies on these aspects, by definition, they’re going to be largely the same.

Studies looking at brain structure, cognitive abilities, and other types of everyday problem and emotional disturbance, have found some key differences though, and it seems they sometimes affect girls particularly negatively:

No doubt part of the problem for autistic girls is the rising level of social interaction that comes in middle school. Girls’ networks become intricate and demanding, and friendships often hinge on attention to feelings and lots of rapid and nuanced communication ‚Äî in person, by cellphone or Instant Messenger. No matter how much they want to connect, autistic girls are not good at empathy and conversation, and they find themselves locked out, seemingly even more than boys do. At the University of Texas Medical School, Katherine Loveland, a psychiatry professor, recently compared 700 autistic boys and 300 autistic girls and found that while the boys’ “abnormal communications” decreased as I.Q. scores rose, the girls’ did not. “Girls will have more trouble with social networks if they’re having greater difficulty with communication and language,” she says.

The article is a well-researched tour through some of the latest research on girls with autism, but also has some wonderful illustrations of how girls with autism experience the complex world of social interaction.

Link to NYT article ‘What Autistic Girls Are Made Of’.