Mothers and fathers' perception of social-responsive behaviors of autistic individuals.
Parents rate autistic girls as more social than boys even when clinician scores match—so double-check parent reports with direct tests before ruling out autism in girls.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Paolizzi et al. (2025) asked moms and dads to rate their autistic kids on the Social Responsiveness Scale.
Clinicians also scored the same kids with the ADOS-2, a gold-standard play test.
The team then compared parent scores to clinician scores for boys and girls.
What they found
Parents saw girls as more social and less repetitive than boys.
Yet the ADOS-2 showed no real sex difference.
The gap hints that caregiver views may hide autistic traits in girls.
How this fits with other research
Capio et al. (2013) saw the same parent-clinician split on empathy: parents reported fewer real-life empathic acts even when lab tasks looked equal.
Lehnhardt et al. (2016) and Whaling et al. (2025) extend the sex-angle into adulthood, showing late-diagnosed women can outscore men on certain cognitive tasks and that sex adds little to adult diagnosis.
McGonigle et al. (2014) also caught fathers under-reporting their own autism-like traits, echoing the theme that parent reports can tilt away from outside measures.
Why it matters
When you screen an autistic girl, treat low parent SRS scores as a yellow flag, not an all-clear. Pair every parent form with a direct social assessment or ADOS-2 module. This small step keeps girls from slipping past diagnosis and into later mental-health crisis.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The interplay between behavioral differences presented by autistic males and females, and gender norms might influence caregivers' behavior perceptions, contributing to the later identification of autistic females. AIM: Our study aims to investigate differences in mothers' and fathers' perceptions of children's behaviors typically associated with autism. Further, we aim to analyze parental perception of children's behaviors in relation to their offspring's sex. Second, our objective is to examine differences in the perception of behaviors of males and females to better understand females' phenotypes and potential reasons for their underdiagnosis METHODS: The sample consisted of 40 children and adolescents (M chronological age = 8.75 years, SD = 1.10, Range = 4-16.75), 20 males and 20 females, with their mothers and fathers. Parental perceptions are studied through the Social Responsiveness Scale, a quantitative report instrument that assesses autistic characteristics. RESULTS: Mothers and fathers reported similar profiles of their children. However, females presented better abilities in relation to Social Communication and fewer Mannerisms than males. However, clinicians' observations scores related to the ADOS-2 did not show evidence of differences in behavioural characteristics typically associated with autism. CONCLUSIONS: These mechanisms should be further explored as they might partly determine females' later diagnosis. Children's age plays a significant role, as older individuals present more severe behaviors associated with autism in the dimensions previously mentioned and Social Motivation. Hence, a late diagnosis can exacerbate behavioral presentation of autism.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2025 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2025.105045