Autistic Symptoms in Children and Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria.

Cohen et al. (2018) gave the Children’s Social Behavior Questionnaire to three groups: kids with gender dysphoria, kids with autism, and typically developing kids.

All youth were 6–18 years old. The team wanted to know if gender-dysphoric children show more ASD-like traits than their peers.

The gender-dysphoric group landed in the middle. They scored higher than neurotypical kids on every ASD symptom area.

They still scored lower than the autism group, but the lift showed up in social, communication, and repetitive-behaviour domains.

Chang et al. (2022) extends this picture. They followed autistic teens into adulthood and found more of them later wish to be the opposite sex. Together the studies form a two-way alert: GD youth show ASD traits, and ASD youth later report GD wishes.

Smit et al. (2019) used a different screener (SCQ) in secure children’s homes and also saw a 13 % ASD-trait bump. The match tells us standard questionnaires catch overlooked ASD features in special clinical groups.

Kaartinen et al. (2014) looks like a contradiction at first: autistic girls were less aggressive, not more. But that study tested only kids with an ASD diagnosis, while R et al. tested kids without one. The lesson: elevated traits do not equal diagnosis; they signal a need for deeper look.

If a client presents with gender dysphoria, screen broadly for ASD traits even when rigidity is not the chief complaint. Use a quick tool like the CSBQ or SCQ. Early dual detection lets you write goals that teach both social-flexibility and gender-exploration coping skills in one plan.