Could Sensory Differences Be a Sex-Indifferent Biomarker of Autism? Early Investigation Comparing Tactile Sensitivity Between Autistic Males and Females.

The final sample included only 18 autistic females, so the sex comparisons were underpowered. The study was exploratory and used existing data, so the authors describe the results as preliminary. Children with intellectual disability, seizures, brain injury, identifiable causes of autism, or reading learning disabilities were excluded, so the findings may not apply to children with those conditions. The sample was children only, so it says nothing about adolescents or adults. Co-occurring ADHD was common: 41 of the 54 autistic children met criteria for ADHD, but the sample was too small to analyse ADHD as a separate factor. The matching process was not designed to compare males and females across diagnosis groups directly, although the authors checked age and IQ and found them comparable. No treatment was tested, so it cannot show that any therapy works.

Do not conclude that tactile testing can identify autism in girls. The sex differences were also present in non-autistic girls, and the study was exploratory with only 18 autistic females.