It simply never occurred to people that autism might 'look' different in e.g. females, BAME communities, older people, males who don't present in typically male ways, etc./
How many people know they're autistic, so far.
These are the studies from various countries and teams.
England & Scotland data taken from the official school records.
The problem is, not everyone knows they're autistic.
The tests & assessments tend to find white males/
It simply never occurred to people that autism might 'look' different in e.g. females, BAME communities, older people, males who don't present in typically male ways, etc./
Why do I suspect this? From conversation with diagnostic professionals who are updating their info and having 'oh heck!' moments.
From parents struggling to get their daughters diagnosed, whereas the son was easy/
And so many with identical presentations who are still struggling to get diagnosed/
It's simply a reality that the tools they were given were designed to pick white men.
Let's look at some examples:/
This can be cultural. It might be immensely rude to look an adult in the eye, in some cultures.
What about their hobbies? Oh she plays with dolls? Great.
Oh, he plays with toy trains? Autism!
Even though the 50 dolls are lined up/
Are they a male that shows sudden changes in mood/angry anxiety? Autism!
Repeating, many diagnostic teams are good.../
So, when I see prevalence statistics saying it's 4:1 boys/
I think it's far closer.
Colleagues from BAME communities talk of societal and cultural barriers to even thinking about getting a child diagnosed, also/
More from Education
When the university starts sending out teaching evaluation reminders, I tell all my classes about bias in teaching evals, with links to the evidence. Here's a version of the email I send, in case anyone else wants to poach from it.
1/16
When I say "anyone": needless to say, the people who are benefitting from the bias (like me) are the ones who should helping to correct it. Men in math, this is your job! Of course, it should also be dealt with at the institutional level, not just ad hoc.
OK, on to my email:
2/16
"You may have received automated reminders about course evals this fall. I encourage you to fill the evals out. I'd be particularly grateful for written feedback about what worked for you in the class, what was difficult, & how you ultimately spent your time for this class.
3/16
However, I don't feel comfortable just sending you an email saying: "please take the time to evaluate me". I do think student evaluations of teachers can be valuable: I have made changes to my teaching style as a direct result of comments from student teaching evaluations.
4/16
But teaching evaluations have a weakness: they are not an unbiased estimator of teaching quality. There is strong evidence that teaching evals tend to favour men over women, and that teaching evals tend to favour white instructors over non-white instructors.
5/16
1/16
When a teaching award is based solely on teaching evals and then only men get it. pic.twitter.com/szIBkCvTe9
— Dr. Marissa Kawehi (@MarissaKawehi) February 12, 2021
When I say "anyone": needless to say, the people who are benefitting from the bias (like me) are the ones who should helping to correct it. Men in math, this is your job! Of course, it should also be dealt with at the institutional level, not just ad hoc.
OK, on to my email:
2/16
"You may have received automated reminders about course evals this fall. I encourage you to fill the evals out. I'd be particularly grateful for written feedback about what worked for you in the class, what was difficult, & how you ultimately spent your time for this class.
3/16
However, I don't feel comfortable just sending you an email saying: "please take the time to evaluate me". I do think student evaluations of teachers can be valuable: I have made changes to my teaching style as a direct result of comments from student teaching evaluations.
4/16
But teaching evaluations have a weakness: they are not an unbiased estimator of teaching quality. There is strong evidence that teaching evals tend to favour men over women, and that teaching evals tend to favour white instructors over non-white instructors.
5/16
This is the steady stream of propaganda that's going to be hitting us daily, selling "deprogramming" and "re-education" as normal and reasonable, attempting to convince us that the Biden-Harris side is the good-guy side, admittedly 'backed by corporate billionaires'.
Don\u2019t know who this dude is but he broke that shit DOWN!! Listen especially the ones that need to hear it!! pic.twitter.com/gSZno2yaRh
— Leslie Jones \U0001f98b (@Lesdoggg) January 17, 2021