TRANSTORNO DO ESPECTRO AUTISTA: Uma revisão integrativa sobre a dificuldade de diagnóstico em meninas e mulheres

The literature reveals a difficulty in identifying Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in girls and women, who are often underdiagnosed and/or not given the correct diagnosis. This study aimed to identify and analyze the main challenges in diagnosing ASD in girls and women, exploring the barriers that prevent early and accurate diagnosis through an integrative review of the literature. Articles were selected from PubMed (Public Medline), Scielo (Scientific Electronic Library Online), and Pepsic (Electronic Journals of Psychology) between 2017 and 2022. Seven articles were selected from PubMed, which indicated that girls often mask social behaviors, and assessments in boys are facilitated by the impairment of verbal communication. It is concluded that more studies on this topic are essential to understand the manifestation of ASD in girls and women, in addition to validating and standardizing, within the Brazilian context, the instruments identified by international scientific literature as the most sensitive for screening ASD in the female population.