Research on Misdiagnosed/Undiagnosed Women

Before I was diagnosed with Dyslexia, my parents would receive comments from my teachers such as, “Halsey lacks interest in learning but not in her social life” or “School just isn’t her thing”. Due to these detrimental comments, I’d like to shed light on the situation in terms of the issues surrounding women’s diagnoses or lack thereof. Numerous studies have revealed that women are typically underdiagnosed or even misdiagnosed more often than men. 

According to several case studies, these recurring erroneous diagnoses can be due to women’s phenotypes being significantly less obvious than men’s. For instance, Doctor Camilla Gesi et. al, authors of the study, Gender Differences in Misdiagnosis and Delayed Diagnosis Among Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder with No Language or Intellectual Disability, provides the example stating, “women tended to show interests, behaviors, and communicative features that were socially more acceptable and in line with gender stereotypes.” Thus, one explanation for women’s underdiagnosis is due to their symptoms matching the perceived “stereotypical” or “common” woman’s behaviors. 

Another common reason for women’s inaccurate diagnoses is due to diagnostic delays in women. Camilla Gesi et. al explains how “women reported a direct, strong correlation between diagnostic delay and the Attention to detail scores of the AQ questionnaire, meaning that a higher impairment in this area was associated with a greater diagnostic delay.” Therefore, the higher the score women received when being diagnosed in this case for Autism, the more likely it was that they would initially be misdiagnosed with something like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder due to having greater attention to detail. 

To this day, there still is a lack of education and knowledge on classifying women with disabilities. The aforementioned reasons for underdiagnoses or misdiagnoses are only a few of the explanations for why it is common for a woman to suffer in silence.